


Opened Minds

by Bardicvoice



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Case Fic, Drama, Future Fic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-13
Updated: 2010-06-13
Packaged: 2017-10-10 02:34:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 42,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bardicvoice/pseuds/Bardicvoice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story picks up 16 years after the series ended: the long separated Starsky and Hutch reunite to take on a campus killer. Like an episode of the show, the story is presented in four acts, with an epilogue tag.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act One

**Author's Note:**

> _This is not intended to infringe upon any trademark rights or copyrights held by Spelling/Goldberg Productions, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures Television, the American Broadcasting Company, Sony Television, or others in connection with the names and likenesses of characters depicted in the 1975-1979 television series _ _ **Starsky &amp; Hutch** _

**Starsky &amp; Hutch: Together Again**

_**Opened Minds**_  
Copyright 1995, Bardicvoice

  
**Act One**   


_His hands were sweating, and he gripped the gun tighter. Nearly blind in the overcast dark, breathing through his mouth for silence, he listened, using his ears to picture and place the sellers and the buyers who were dealing beyond the wall of wooden shipping crates piled up at his back. He heard another voice too, tinny and electronic, and though he knew it was somehow out of place he couldn't figure why, or make out what it said, just that it was wrong, and anything wrong meant trouble ..._

_The headlights that suddenly stabbed out to pin him against the crates seemed almost tangible, freezing him in place as he heard the engine roar and the gun like a backfire and Starsky's wild shout of warning at the same time as his right leg exploded ..._

* * *

Ken Hutchinson jerked awake soaked in cold sweat, both hands grasping the remembered agony that wracked and cramped the muscles of his leg, the echo of his own cry escaping through clenched teeth. Then other hands caught the pain and kneaded the knots away, and Denise's voice finally penetrated.

"It's all right! Ken, you're all right, it's okay, you're okay, just relax, it's okay, it's all right, shh, it's all right ..."

He felt a stab of resentment at being reassured like a child; then the comfort penetrated and he let out his breath in a series of shuddering gasps as the contorted muscles in his scarred leg slowly relaxed and released their jaws of pain. Denise shifted her hands from his leg to his shoulders, rubbing in a soothing circle, and then drew him back to lean against her as she sensed the fear and the pain ebb away. She said nothing, but her hands continued their gentle stroking, their message calm and reassuring. He felt his heartbeat gradually slow from panic down to shame.

"I'm, uh, I'm sorry ..."

"Don't be."

"I'm supposed to be too old for nightmares," he offered, trying for a lighter tone, and she gave him a shake, then pushed him down against the pillows. The silver moonlight pouring in through the high windows was bright enough to see by, and although it leached away the colors and left everything in muted shades of grey, the concern on her face was plain to read.

"If people got too old for nightmares, all my clients would be kids." Her eyes slid back from his face to his leg, which the rumpled sheet left exposed. He didn't bother to follow her glance; after fifteen years, he had no need to look to see the ugly patchwork of scars that ran from his knee halfway to his ankle. She saw the refusal in his eyes, and moved one hand to touch the scars.

"That wasn't just any old nightmare, was it? You were reliving this."

He shifted uncomfortably under her hand.

"Look, let's not talk about it, okay? It's over."

Her hand caught his chin, forcing him to meet her eyes.

"If it were over, you wouldn't still be dreaming it."

He pulled free of her and sat up, turning away to swing his legs to the floor as he snatched up and pulled on the bathrobe from the chair beside the bed. The cane leaning against the chair clattered to the floor, and he grabbed it up for support as he levered himself to his feet.

"Look, I'm not one of your patients, and these aren't office hours. Just leave it alone!"

"I can't! Ken – I can't turn off what I know and what I am just because I love you – any more than you can forget what hurt you so badly." He heard her get up after him, but didn't turn around at the rustling of her robe or even her tentative touch on his shoulder.

"It was a long time ago," he said finally. "Fifteen years. In a different life, a different place. I haven't even had that dream for years."

"So why now?"

Her quiet calm could not be avoided, and something in that even voice inspired truth.

"I think – because I'm going back. Next Tuesday."

"The summer term in L.A.?" The question was full of surprise. "With a reaction like that, I was expecting 'Nam, at least. But ‒ L.A.?"

The silence held, and when he continued to say nothing, she stepped in front of him and reached up, putting her left hand on his shoulder and cupping his cheek in her right hand.

"Ken, if you really don't want to talk, I'll stop pushing; I promise. But whatever it is, it hasn't healed in fifteen years of silence, and probably won't in fifteen more. Maybe - it's time to try talking it out?"

Her gentle patience undermined the walls he'd built to withstand more direct assaults. He drew a deep breath and closed his eyes, but memories filled the blankness and he couldn't turn them off. When he opened his eyes again she was still waiting, still silent, still there; and her eyes were somehow easier to face than the memories.

"I used to be a cop," he said slowly. "I spent almost ten years on the force, mostly plainclothes. I had a partner closer to me than any brother could have been. It was what I knew, most of what I wanted – and then one night some two-bit drug dealer nearly shot my leg off with a magnum. Starsk broke cover to try to get to me, and the bastard nailed him too. I saw him go down, then our backup arrived and I passed out. When I woke up a long time later, I found out Starsky was okay and I was a crip. Hell of a twist: I got my partner back and lost him, all at the same time. A career and a partnership, shot to hell and gone."

"And?" she prompted softly.

"And what? There's nothing more to say. I didn't fit there any more; I sure as hell couldn't do the job. I moved North, took my degree, came out a teacher, and here I am."

"And your partner?"

"I don't have a partner!" He almost shouted the words, and the violence seemed to surprise him as much as it shook her. He forced control with a tangible act of will. "Look, that's a special kind of relationship; it took abilities I didn't have any more. They gave Starsky someone who could do the job, and I left. What else could I have done – hung around and been pitied? I made the break clean, and I never looked back."

"Never?"

"Never."

She looked at him steadily for a long moment, searching his eyes and his face for what lay behind them, and then dropped her glance and took a couple of short steps away. When she turned again, her movement was very deliberate, and he caught the fleeting edge of some internal debate in the quick play of unreadable emotions that crossed her face. The expression that settled was one he couldn't quite decipher, some mix of reluctance and determined compassion.

"You're a lousy liar, Ken, even to yourself."

Rage flared up and he dropped the cane as he took one long limping stride and grabbed her wrists. She twisted her arms against his thumbs and broke his hold, slid sideways, and in the same move grabbed his arm, twisted his wrist, and put a reverse lock on his elbow, forcing him to hold still or risk having his arm broken. Her right leg was suddenly just behind his, in position to sweep his leg out from under him.

"Practical self-defense," she said in his ear. "You taught me those tricks yourself, remember? So tell me; if you never looked back, why are you so angry? And are you angry at me, at your partner – or at yourself?"

Her words and his humiliation hit like icewater, dousing rage in bitterness and shame. His throat closed on it, and all he could do was shake his head. She cautiously released the pressure on the hold and changed her grip from restraint to comfort, but he knew that she could reestablish control with blinding speed. Her words were fists, and he felt every punch.

"My guess is, not a day goes by that you don't think of him. For ten years, you depended on each other for your lives; that's a bond closer than marriage. You had to invest too much of yourself in that relationship to turn it off like a light. I'll bet that you still see things and instantly wonder what he would think of them; and I'll bet that every time you hear about something bad happening to a cop, you wonder how he is, and it aches your heart not to know; and you've been chewing on that every day since the day you left."

The strength ran out of him and he slipped to his knees and wound up sitting on the floor; she caught his right side as he went down to cushion the impact on his bad leg, and knelt beside him. His shame only increased when he realized he was crying.

"I couldn't carry my end any more," he faltered. "Partners are equals, and I wasn't equal – he acted like nothing had changed, like we could just go on even though – even though I couldn't back him up, couldn't do anything for him, just – just take, and take, and never give, never do my share ..."

"You mean, never leave him in your debt, the way you were in his? Too much pride for your own damn good: the curse of being male." The words were sardonic and cutting, but the tone was gentle. She put her arms around him and held him close, drawing his head down against her shoulder, rubbing his back and his neck to ease the tension there. She said nothing for a long while, but let him recover, using her slow hands to speak instead of words. When his breathing had steadied a bit she stroked his hair and then shifted his head back to meet his eyes.

"You haven't had any word from him, in all these years?"

He shook his head, and his lip quirked in a shaky imitation of a smile.

"I didn't give him much of a chance. I – said some pretty unforgivable things, just before I left. Now – I wouldn't know what to say. Fifteen years – I don't even know him any more."

"I wouldn't bet on that." He looked at her like a drowning man at the hope of a sail. "Bonds that strong don't break so easily. I've seen them between war buddies in combat units, and I've seen vet reunions after twenty years that would make skeptics believe in telepathy." She essayed a smile of her own and looked him straight in the eye. "When it comes to competing with life and death partners, mere wives and lovers don't stand a chance, and we get jealous as hell. He may stand years and a few hundred miles away, but I'm still in his shadow, this – Starsky? – of yours."

He snorted quietly, and for a while they just sat there on the floor, calming down in a companionable silence. There were too many thoughts in his eyes to make room for words, but eventually he cleared his throat.

"He's still alive, and he's still a cop." She cocked her head in question, and he looked sheepishly away. "I've seen his name in a few stories in the L.A. papers over the years." His voice got even lower, embarrassed. "I saved the articles."

"I'd be surprised if you hadn't," she said, and he looked up, startled. She actually laughed at his expression. "It's not something to be ashamed of, you silly nit. I know that men will never admit it – not to women, anyway – but love isn't sentimental foolishness, and love is a large part of what you had. That, and the very special trust that comes only from surviving things that could have killed you, and doing it together."

He thought about that for a moment, but it kept bringing him back to the same wall.

"So – what do I do now?"

"That's up to you. You could just pick up a phone. Or – you could wait until next week, and just walk up to him on the street. 'Course, both of you might drop dead from heart attacks, but I think you could survive."

Panic tried to surge, but he clamped down on it.

"I couldn't use a phone; I'd freeze, I wouldn't know what to say." For the first time, when he looked at her, his eyes were clear, and he gave a shaky laugh. "I'll probably freeze if I see him, too, but at least then he'd have more to react to than dead silence on the line."

She leaned forward and kissed him lightly.

"That's the spirit. We'll stage an ambush."

"We?"

"Well, you don't think I'd let you walk into this alone, do you? Besides – or have you forgotten? – I'm part of this seminar series too."

He looked at her, grateful beyond words for her calm and smiling strength, and then he framed her face with his hands and kissed her long and thoroughly. When they both came up for air, he stroked her cheekbones with his thumbs, and smiled.

"Is this how you treat all your patients?"

"Clients, my dear. And no, I don't usually wind up kissing them while I'm sitting in my robe on a very cold floor, but I'll make a special exception in your case."

He laughed and pulled her close, and only then did he notice that the floor really was cold, and his bad leg had stiffened.

"I don't think I can get up," he admitted, and she grinned.

"Come on, old man." She pulled and he pushed, and he surged up and tottered erect. She fitted herself under his right shoulder like a crutch and aimed them back toward the bed, but he stopped her before they could actually move.

"He might just tell me to go to hell," he said, and she met his eyes squarely.

"He might," she agreed. "But you don't really think he will. And you'll never know until you try."

"Neese, don't you ever get tired of being right?"

"Nope," she said cheerfully. "And neither would you; if you ever were, that is. Now, will you get back to bed before you fall over, and take me with you?"

"Take you with me falling over, or take you with me back to bed?"

They were close enough; she gave him a shove, and they wound up on the bed.

"What do you think?" she said, and he pinned her beneath him and gave her a kiss.

Some time later, she propped her head on her hand to watch him sleep. Despite the relaxation of slumber, the lines that pain had etched still furrowed his face with shadows in the moonlight. She brushed stray hairs lightly off his forehead, and he stirred.

"Awright, Starsk," he muttered, and smiled, but did not wake.

She bit her lip and looked up through the windows at the silvered night sky.

"Don't let me have called this one wrong, okay?" she whispered.

* * *

"Here's the latest on that second campus murder – killer must be a real psycho, they could get a movie out of this one, if we ever solve it – these four are the convenience store robberies, here's the Dawson kidnaping, damn – where'd the Cutler file get to? Oh, never mind, it's here somewhere ..." David Starsky, Chief of Detectives, Violent Crimes, pawed through the stacks of manila folders piled haphazardly on his desk, and Detective Consuela Hidalgo, her arms already full of files, started to laugh.

"I'll find it faster than you will, given your wonderful filing system. I'll take care of it. You'd better go, boss. Your wife will really skin you if you're late tonight, and I promise, the place won't fall apart while you take off for a few hours. Go on. Hey – you owe her some consideration. How she stands you, I'll never know."

"Wanna walk a beat again, Detective Hidalgo?" he mock-growled.

"You need me too much where I am – covering your administrative butt. Sir." She grinned. "In case you've forgotten, your reservations are at Fazio's ..." She watched him as, struck by a sudden thought, he began desperately patting his various pockets, and laughed again. "And you put the ring in your top right drawer this morning."

He glared at her as he yanked open the drawer and took out the small velvet box, opening it – like a small boy – to be sure of its contents before slipping it into his right suitcoat pocket.

"Detectives who spy on their chief are asking for trouble," he warned ominously.

"Chiefs of detectives who stand up their wives on their anniversaries are asking for more," she said sweetly, and he shook his head in disgust.

"That's blackmail, detective."

"You bet."

He pulled out his keys, but stopped again in the doorway, looking back.

"Look, on this campus thing, if anything develops ..."

"... We'll get you on the cellular in your car." She shook her head. "What's with you, chief? You already married her, so it can't be wedding jitters, and you know damned well we can hold down the fort – so what gives?"

"I don't know," he said, and as quickly as the words came, so did calm. "I just – have this feeling. Something's coming. Something – I don't know."

"Next thing _we_ know, you're going to be breaking into songs from 'West Side Story,'" Hidalgo teased in feigned disgust. "Trust me, if it comes, your phone'll jingle. Now get out of here!"

He raised his hands in surrender, and left. But the itch stayed with him; something was definitely coming. He'd been a cop long enough to know when to trust hunches, and this one was insistent. Mulling it over, he drove home on automatic, and only really shook the feeling off when he pulled into the driveway to see Cheryl already walking toward the car. He looked furtively at the clock on the dash as she opened the passenger door and slid in.

"Oh, don't look so guilty – you're not that late. You missed Kenny and his friends, but they were so eager to get off on this lake camping trip with the Scouts, they left an hour early." She leaned over to kiss his cheek before buckling the seat and shoulder belts. "Mmm – and I've got you all to myself, for a whole week. I feel definitely wicked ... and at least fifteen years younger, all of a sudden."

He feigned panic.

"Does that mean we have to go through the whole wedding thing all over again? Maybe I ought to reconsider ..."

"Just you try, mister policeman, just you try!"

He grinned and put the car into reverse, backing out of the driveway and heading for the restaurant.

"Well, _I_ don't feel fifteen years younger. I mean, hey – the clothes are wrong, the house is wrong, sure as hell the _car_ is wrong ..."

She patted the dashboard of the dark sedan as if it were a dog's head.

"Don't worry, boy – he's just never lost his taste for the trashy, sporty look." She gave Starsky a sly sideways glance. "For a while, there, I thought every car we would ever own was going to be fire engine red and have only two doors."

"Hey!" Starsky did the hurt look to perfection. "A man's wheels reflect his soul."

"Ahh. So this car means that bright lights and sirens are still hiding beneath that perfect bland bureaucrat's disguise?"

"What is it with you women today – you all got it in for me? First I'm gettin' it from Hidalgo, now from you: hey, it's harassment! I can bust you for that, lady."

"Oooh, kinky."

He shook his head.

"It's gonna be a long night," he said.

* * *

Despite the early snide comments, dinner was perfect, recapturing the days of candlelit romance before children and other obligations. Starsky and Cheryl lingered over coffee, and when he felt the moment was just precisely right, Starsky fished in his suitcoat pocket, and presented the velvet-covered jewel box.

"Happy anniversary, honey."

"Dave!" She opened the box and caught her breath. The ring was a golden flower of tiny diamonds, and she knew without counting that there would be fifteen of them. With great care she removed it from the box, but instead of putting it on, she admired it for a moment and then held it, and her right hand, out to him.

"Will you do the honors?" she asked, and he slipped the ring onto her finger. She held it out and rotated the hand to see the jewels flash with reflected fire from the candles, and then she reached to take his left hand in both of hers, raised it to her lips, and kissed his fingers. "It's beautiful, Dave. Thank you."

He ducked his head in embarrassed pleasure, smiling. She squeezed his hand, and her expression changed to impish delight.

"I have something for you, too."

"Oh?"

She released his hand to fish in her purse, and came up with a small box about three inches by two, about an inch and a half deep, wrapped in red foil paper with a thin white ribbon. She presented it to him with a flourish.

"I guarantee, you have _no_ idea how hard this was to find, but I was determined not to give up. 'Course, I had to tell the sales clerk that it was for my son, not my husband, but, well ..."

He stripped off the paper to find a bland white cardboard box, and opened the box to reveal a die-cast metal model car – a perfect miniature copy of a 1974 Ford Gran Torino, candy-apple red, with white racing stripes slashing boldly down both sides and leaping up the rear pillars to meet across the back of the roof. It rested on his palm like a tangible memory, and he froze, staring at it, suddenly adrift in buried years.

"'A man's wheels reflect his soul,'" she quoted gently, smiling, and she cupped his hand with the little car in both of hers. "Bold and flashy – well, maybe just a bit tacky – but nothing held back, everything right out there in the open for everyone to see. I only had to see that car to know exactly what I was getting in a husband. Truth to tell – I kind of miss it."

"Yeah." He found his voice at last, and was surprised to hear it so rusty. He ran one finger lightly along the tiny vehicle's roof. "So do I." That little red model carried more ghosts than just the spirit of a long-gone car; the smile he tried touched only the corners of his mouth, and never reached his eyes. "I missed it more than I thought, I guess."

She reached across to lift his chin, breaking his fascinated gaze off the little toy to meet her understanding eyes.

"Hey." Her tone was gently teasing, but her eyes were serious and steady. "I always knew that I came second. I never grudged that prior claim. After all – it kept you alive, long enough to meet and marry me. I guess I figure – I owe it something, too." They both knew she wasn't talking about the car.

He trapped her right hand against his cheek, and turned his head to plant a kiss on her palm.

"You are one special lady," he said. "I love you, Mrs. Cheryl Starsky."

"Take me home and prove it?" she challenged, and he rose to the occasion, standing up to hand her out of her chair.

"Your wish is my command." He bowed gallantly, and without looking at it again, he slid the little red car into the pocket that had so recently held a ring. All chivalry, he escorted her out of the restaurant and back to the plain dark sedan. He held the door for her; once she was belted in and her door closed, he skipped around the hood with an echo of his old spirit and dash to bounce into the driver's seat. He fired up the engine, and then – with a quick little sideways leer to make certain she noticed – he deliberately revved it. She laughed.

The car's cellular phone shrilled over the music of her amusement, and he grabbed the receiver with an irritated, apologetic glance at his wife.

"Starsky." He listened for a few beats. "Okay. I'm on my way – we're only about ten minutes from the campus. Who's the officer in charge? – Good. Tell him I'll be right there."

"Not another one," Cheryl said, before he even had a chance to hang up the phone. The resigned dismay in her voice was clearly for the situation, not for him, and Starsky gave her a grateful look as he switched on the unmarked car's siren and the discreet flashing lights hidden behind the grill.

"'Fraid so. Someone's really got it in for college professors; this is the third murder in less than two months. Look, this won't take long – Harris is running the scene, he's good, but I just want to see for myself, get a feel for the case. I promise, we'll go straight home from there."

"It's okay. I'm used to it by now." She smiled wryly, and he spared a hand from his driving to capture her fingers and give them a quick kiss.

"You're better to me than I deserve."

"Just you remember it!"

* * *

Denise tapped the remote control, and the slide projector clicked onto a blank screen.

"Lights, please?" she asked, and the lecture hall lights came up as the projector light dimmed. She scanned across the rising sea of faces and seemed to address everyone at once, even those up at the back of the auditorium-style hall.

"So – what we'll really be exploring this summer is how all these various pieces and disciplines interact to influence and control policy- and decision-making. Psychology, sociology, economics, history, the various facets of scientific and technical development: they all play significant roles and influence and shape each other, as well as the way we see ourselves and our world and make our decisions. We'll be doing a lot of team-teaching," and she gestured across the stage at the other seven professors, including Ken, who shared it with her. "I warn you, we academics hold stubborn and often diametrically opposed opinions and we defend them ferociously, so you can expect some knock-down, drag-out, no-holds-barred intellectual fights – and maybe even some real ones." The audience chuckled, and the amusement actually seemed real, rather than just polite. She glanced at Ken, and he picked up his cue seamlessly.

"That's it for tonight," he said. "Be sure to read the consumer and political case studies before the Thursday night session; whether you volunteer or not, you may find yourself playing one of the roles, and you'll really feel dumb if you have to ask the opposition what position you're supposed to take. Unless any of my esteemed colleagues disagrees?" He turned to run a glance across their lines, raising an eyebrow, but none of them raised an objection. "Ladies and gentlemen, you are dismissed."

The hall filled with the sudden commotion of a hundred people all standing and talking at once, most heading for the doors at the back of the hall, and Ken took the opportunity to cross to where Denise was retrieving her slides from the projector.

"Nice job," he said, and she flashed him the radiant smile of an actor on an audience-fed adrenaline rush.

"You too," she agreed. "I think this bunch'll challenge us, keep us on our toes." She finished loading the slides into a small plastic box, and slipped it into her shoulder bag. "God, I'm wired; nothing like playing to an interested captive audience, eh?"

"How about stopping for a late cappuccino on the way home?"

"Make it iced and you'll win my heart."

"I thought I had that already."

"Figure of speech, love."

Another of the professors bustled over, a tiny black woman who nearly danced with energy.

"I knew this multidisciplinary approach would catch them," she crowed. "And you two are going to be dynamite, I can tell."

"Thanks, Holly," Denise said. "I'm glad you invited us to be part of the show."

"So am I," the woman confided. Some of her bubbling cheeriness abruptly disappeared. "Look, I know you two are a pair, and I just wanted to say – stick together while you're down here, okay? I don't know whether you've heard, but two professors were murdered, right here on campus, within the last six weeks. From what I've gathered, the police haven't a clue; the best they've been able to do is advise us never to walk alone and to always be on the lookout for anyone suspicious." Her eyes recaptured their twinkle. "Of course, that includes virtually everyone in the Poly Sci department, but you never know. Just – a word to the wise."

"We appreciate it," Ken said, but Denise could see his mind was elsewhere. Faintly, over the gradually dwindling human noise of the emptying lecture hall, she thought she could hear sirens; looking at him, however, she wasn't sure whether the sounds were real or only in her mind.

"Thanks, Holly. We'll keep our eyes peeled and our backs guarded."

The black woman patted her arm and left. A bit more somber, the two of them followed the escaping students toward the late evening air.

As they emerged into the tail end of summer's long twilight, they found that the sirens had not been imaginary. The physics building across the parking lot was awash in flashing colored lights from squad cars and unmarked units. The commotion drew them as it drew others, but as they walked closer Denise studied Ken's face rather than the disturbance. There was something there, some indefinable sense of yearning and loss, and he walked as if drawn more by hunger than by simple curiosity.

One uniformed officer had just finished roping off an area, wrapping bright yellow tape around the tree trunks by the walking path. Accompanied by a black man who managed to project dignity despite wearing ratty blue jeans and a paint-stained t-shirt, two men in jackets labeled "Coroner" carried a sheeted body on a gurney toward the police line, and were halted by a dark-haired man in a grey suit.

* * *

Starsky squatted beside the gurney and lifted the sheet. The dead man was probably in his mid- to late sixties, with a craggy, lived-in face and dark hair graying elegantly at the temples. Starsky turned the man's head with one hand to be able to see behind his left ear, and grimaced. He looked up at Vedette, who waited wordlessly with the coroner's wagon crew.

"Don't suppose I really have to ask," he said, and the black man shrugged.

"Won't know all the gory details until I do the autopsy, but yeah – this is definitely number three in the series: all the same holes in exactly the same places. This is one seriously sick dude, Starsky. When are you poe-lice boys and girls going to nail him?"

"When you cutters give us enough to go on." Starsky stood up, and gestured the other two men and the gurney on their way. He looked the coroner up and down, taking in the beat-up old jeans and paint-spattered shirt. "You guys adopting a new dress code in the M.E.'s office?"

"Fat chance. No – I just made the mistake of asking to be called if the campus killer struck again. At this rate, I may never finish adding that den onto the house."

"Keep trying, Vedette." He glanced after the body being loaded into the wagon. "How long 'til you can give me something?"

"No, I'm not going to stay and do it tonight, just for you – but you'll have it before noon tomorrow. Promise."

"Yeah, well, Cheryl would kill me if I headed back to the precinct tonight anyway, so maybe it's just as well." He clapped Vedette on the arm. "See you tomorrow, then."

"Bet on it."

Vedette headed across the police line, stopping long enough to let the coroner's wagon pull out, and then was lost in the eddying currents of spectators gawking at the scene. Starsky shook his head and looked around for Harris. He'd check that one base, he decided, and then get back to Cheryl, waiting patiently in the car.

* * *

Denise felt Ken stiffen at her side in sudden shock. She started to speak his name and just as quickly stopped; all of his attention was focused on the dark-haired man, and he stepped forward and away from her as if mesmerized, clearly forgetting everything except the target of his fascinated gaze. The two men's paths nearly intersected about forty feet away, between the yellow tape and the massed police vehicles. Ken stopped in the shadow of a tree, no more than a long arm's reach away as the dark-haired man paused to give some instruction to two other cops, one uniform and one plainclothes, and then turned away toward the cars while the cops headed back to the roped-off zone. Ken took a half-step into the light and cleared his throat.

"Starsk?" His voice was hoarse and tentative, half in disbelief, half in fear of a rebuff; he wasn't prepared for the speed with which Starsky spun around, surprise and wonder racing across his face.

"Hutch?" The two men just looked at each other, both of their faces studies in emotion too complex to translate. "Hutch." Satisfaction surprised a smile on Starsky's face, and Hutch closed his eyes and released a long, shaky breath in a momentary excess of relief; then Starsky yanked him forward into a rough bearhug, staggering a little under the increased weight as Hutch's damaged leg faltered under the abrupt move. The years fell away as they came together, pain and joy too intertwined to tell the two apart; the embrace was as fierce as a wrestling hold. They both pushed back at the same time to look at each other, but the connection between them remained. Starsky kept both hands on Hutch's shoulders, his fingers flexing and kneading unconsciously, and Hutch's left hand did the same, while the cane in his right dangled almost forgotten.

"God, you look good," Hutch said finally, and the grin that had been trembling on his lips broke over his entire face. Starsky gave him a shake and grinned wickedly back.

"Better than you, man; want I should put out an APB on your hair?"

"You never did fight fair," Hutch complained, then grinned again. "Good to know that some things never change." He took in the conservative suit Starsky was wearing and shook his head, shifting his left hand to tweak the lapel. "But what happened to your wardrobe?"

"Politics," Starsky shrugged. "They made me chief of detectives, violent crime, would you believe it? What about you, hey?"

"Oh, college professor; very sober, very boring, very staid. Just what you'd expect."

"Yeah, right. Dull." Silence stretched again, but there was no discomfort in it; the old telepathy flowed as if it had never been gone, eyes exchanging messages of acceptance and regret.

"God, Starsk – I've missed you," Hutch said at last, almost a whisper.

"You too, partner." Starsky blinked misting eyes, then grinned again. "But boy, was I ever glad to see the last of that crummy car of yours!"

"Yeah, well, I never missed your stupid striped tomato, either."

Mock-growling, Starsky tossed a light punch at his upper arm, and Hutch swung his left in an automatic block, catching Starsky's wrist; both of them smiled. Starsky flipped his hand free and shook his head.

"So – what brought you back, to land in the middle of this?" His gesture and glance took in the yellow warning tape and the squad cars with their flashing lights.

"Coincidence. I was invited to teach a seminar during the summer."

"You didn't tell me you were coming."

For the first time, Hutch broke eye contact, ducking his head away; then he resolutely turned back.

"I wasn't sure you'd welcome me back. I – pushed you off pretty hard, way back when."

"'S okay." Starsky shrugged. "It took a while, but Cheryl made me realize you needed to make a clean break. Forget it."

"I can't. That may have been what I thought at the time, but I was wrong, Starsk. When I finally figured that out, I was afraid it was too late to come back, so I never did." One corner of his mouth tugged back in a wry smile. "Dumb, huh?"

"Yeah, well, you know what they say about blondes and brains," Starsky offered, and the awkward moment dissolved. Hutch switched his cane to his left hand, and held out his right.

"Friends?" he asked, and Starsky smiled as he extended his own hand.

"Huh-uh – partners." Starsky clasped his forearm instead of his hand, and after a fractional second Hutch returned the grip.

"Partners," he agreed softly. They stood for a long moment oblivious to their surroundings, until a teasing female voice intruded.

"Are the two of you going to stare at each other all night?"

Hutch flushed and fumbled in sudden embarrassment, but he didn't break contact with Starsky as he turned to include Denise in their little group.

"Neese, I'm sorry – I didn't even think ..."

"It doesn't matter," she said, and they could hear her smile as well as see it. "The show has been more than worth the price of admission."

"Don't mind him," Starsky said, stepping smoothly in front of Hutch and reaching out to take her hand. "Hutch always gets tongue-tied with the ladies. I'm Dave Starsky."

"Denise Bay," she said, shaking his hand with a firm grip. "Pleased to meet you." She glanced past him at Hutch. "Hutch," she said experimentally, trying out the sound, and smiled again. "Hutch. I like it. It suits you."

Hutch insinuated himself between them and liberated Denise's hand, then drew her to his left side. She slid her arm around his waist.

"_Doctor_ Bay," Hutch said portentously, stressing her title, "is with me. We're both guest-lecturing for the summer term."

"So why did all my teachers look like you instead of her?" Starsky grinned, then kindled with a sudden idea. "Hey – Cheryl's waiting for me in the car. What say we go back to our place, catch up on old times?"

"Cheryl – Cheryl Davison? The researcher, from the DA's office?" Hutch asked, and Starsky nodded.

"Cheryl Starsky, now. We got married, oh, about four months after you left. Fifteen years ago today, as a matter of fact."

"I didn't hear," Hutch mused. "Kids?"

"Two, boy and girl: Ken and Terry." A shadow passed over his face, but he steeled himself and went on. "Terry – was killed by a drunk driver, two years ago."

"Starsk." Hutch's voice came thick with unshed tears, echoing other days of shared grief, and Starsky closed his eyes against the pain in it that rekindled his own. "I should have been here," Hutch whispered. "I didn't even know; didn't guess – I'm sorry."

With an effort, Starsky made himself shrug, trying to wall off the memory of hurt and recapture the joy of the moment.

"It's over." He took a deep breath to shut the mental door, and raised an enquiring hand. "What about you? The two of you ...?"

"Yes – no," Hutch fumbled, changing mental gears. "I mean – well, I was married, it didn't work out; I've got a couple of daughters in Colorado that I don't get to see. Neese and I – well ..."

"We've been together for a year," Denise said. "We're still learning."

"Yeah." Starsky cocked an eyebrow and, picking up on her effort to lighten the conversation, found a suggestive smile. "I can see that."

"All right, all right, don't rub it in," Hutch grumbled.

"Hey, come on, Cheryl won't believe this – " Starsky grabbed the arm that Hutch had curled around Denise's shoulder and tugged the two of them after him. The sedan wasn't far, and as they approached, the passenger door opened and Cheryl got out, stunned and delighted surprise evident on her face even in the changing and uncertain light.

"Hutch?" she called, before Starsky could say a word. "Oh my God – Hutch, is it really you?"

"In the too, too solid flesh," he admitted, and he pulled free from Starsky's grip to take her right hand in his left while he bent to kiss her cheek. "I understand belated congratulations are in order – or do I mean commiserations?"

She kissed him firmly back.

"Congratulations, and nothing but. And apologies from you, you beast! – why did you ever stay away so long, and never even a word?" She smiled even as she scolded, and his tone stayed light.

"I plead stupidity and cowardice. Forgive me?"

"Before you ever asked, you fool." Her eyes tracked to Denise, and the other woman smiled and offered her own hand.

"Denise Bay," she said, and suddenly grinned. "Significant other," she qualified, with a sly look at the two men. "At least, I think that's what we just figured out."

"Cheryl Starsky, wife." The humor was infectious. "We figured that one out fifteen years ago – well, all except for big blondie, here."

The two women sized each other up over the handshake, and each liked what she saw; the clasp lasted a moment longer than it had to merely for politeness' sake.

Starsky snaked one arm around his wife's shoulders and the other across Denise's, landing that hand on Hutch's near shoulder.

"What do you say we all head to our place and play catch-up?"

"That sounds – " The enthusiasm in Hutch's voice suddenly slipped, and he broke off one idea entirely to come back in a much more diffident voice. "But hey – it's your anniversary. You've got plans ..."

Cheryl reached out and recaptured his hand in both of hers.

"You are the very best present we could have gotten; don't you dare think of running out on us now. I won't hear of it." Her sincerity was unmistakable, and there was something close to entreaty on Starsky's face.

Hutch stole a quick look at Denise, to find her watching him with grave, accepting eyes, not pushing one way or the other, just waiting for his choice. He took a breath and met his partner's eyes.

"So – where do you live these days? Not the same old apartment!"

"Try a real house, with a yard and everything. I even have to cut the grass."

"Since when?" Cheryl interrupted. "Don't believe him; he doesn't know what yardwork is. We're on Crescent Way, about twenty minutes from here, number 537."

"Blaine's old neighborhood, Hutch – remember?" Another look, another memory shared, and Hutch nodded slowly.

"Couldn't forget it," he said. He glanced again at Denise, and she nodded and smiled. "Look, we'll meet you there, okay? Our car's in the faculty lot."

"Just – don't get lost," Starsky said.

"I did that once a long time ago, Starsk – but I don't think you need to worry about it any more. I remember the way."

"Good to meet both of you," Denise added. "See you again in a bit." She waited a beat, then nudged Hutch to get him moving. It took an almost physical effort for him to break eye contact with Starsky, but he turned with her and started away, though with many a quick backward glance. Starsky stood and watched until the night swallowed them, and then still stood watching where they had gone until Cheryl laid a hand on his arm.

"At this rate, they'll get there before us, and figure they've got the wrong house when nobody answers."

"Huh? Oh. Sorry." He saw her back into the car and got in himself, but his eyes drifted off toward the blank dark where Hutch and Denise had disappeared, and the spot filled with memories.

* * *

_"Zebra Three to Central." Leaning in through the window of the Torino, Starsky kept his voice deliberately low and turned down the gain on the radio; sound carried especially well over water at night._

_"Central. Go ahead, Zebra Three."_

_"Request backup west side of the warehouse on pier nine. We have a drug buy going down _ _ now _ _, eight to ten suspects involved, suspects all armed. Request response code two, repeat, code two – no lights or sirens."_

_"Acknowledge response code two, Zebra Three. Stand by." He heard the brief crackle of the radio frequency shift, and then the dispatcher's voice sounded on the broadcast channel. "All units, all units vicinity pier nine. Respond code two, see the officers, four-eighteen in progress, west side of the warehouse, eight to ten suspects, suspects are armed. Respond code two ..."_

_As quickly as that, it went into the dumper. He heard an abrupt flurry of confused noise from the stacked crates beside the warehouse, and suddenly heard the dispatcher in tinny stereo – "respond code two" – and realized he was hearing a police scanner in the same moment as a pair of car headlights flashed on to pin Hutch, hiding waiting for him beside the crates, in twin spotlights, and he screamed Hutch's name as a gun thundered and Hutch cried out, spun around, and fell, clutching a right leg that turned suddenly red._

_"Zebra Three, ten-thirty-three, officer down, officer down!" he yelled into the mike, "They're monitoring your frequency!" and he threw the mike back at the car as he drew his gun and ran for Hutch, dimly hearing sirens start, very close, and from some place he never even saw a flash of brilliant white hit him across the right temple like a glancing fist and knocked him sprawling on his back, and he was deafened by sirens and guns and he couldn't move and couldn't see, and later when he could he almost wished he didn't._

* * *

_Still dressed in surgical scrubs, the young doctor from the emergency room stepped through the swinging doors with the surgeon. Starsky launched to his feet, ignoring the sudden dizziness and the protest from his bandaged skull, and the young doctor turned to him as the surgeon, with one quick irritated look, departed._

_"Doc, my partner – how is he? Will he be okay?"_

_The young doctor hesitated, and the compassion in his tired face rang alarms in Starsky's mind._

_"He's gonna be okay – right, Doc?" Starsky felt rather than saw Captain Dobey looming up behind him, a wall of strength._

_"He'll recover. You'll be able to see him in a couple hours if you want, just for a few minutes." The doctor hesitated again, and Starsky felt his heart sink. He couldn't speak; it fell to Dobey to gently prompt the doctor to continue._

_"But?" Dobey asked, and the doctor took a breath, finding it easier to meet Dobey's eyes than Starsky's._

_"There's something you should know. The bullet didn't just break the bone; it shattered it, like a bomb, just below the knee. We saved the leg, but the damage is permanent. Oh, he'll walk again – you don't have to worry about that – but he'll probably need a brace or a cane for the rest of his life." The doctor's eyes flicked over to meet Starsky's, and fled the void they found there. "Therapy's going to take time. He'll need a lot of support from his friends."_

_"He'll get it," Dobey promised when Starsky remained mute, and the doctor nodded._

_"He's in recovery now; they'll take him up to his room in a couple of hours. Once he's settled, you'll be able to see him, just for a bit; he'll still be pretty foggy, but I think it would do him good." He looked at Starsky's face, pale under the bandage at his forehead. "He kept asking about his partner right up to the minute we put him under. Knowing you're okay will probably do more for him than anything else, right now."_

_"I'll see him," Starsky husked, and from the look on his face, the doctor guessed that he already was. Unable to do more, the doctor simply nodded and left. Starsky stood frozen. Dobey waited him out, watching the blankness of shock in his eyes slowly melt into pain._

_"Hutch runs every damned morning," Starsky whispered at last. "Whether he's got a hangover or it's raining or the sun's broiling, he runs. Damn fool actually likes it. Running. Go figure."_

_Dobey put his hand on the younger man's shoulder and squeezed hard, blinking back moisture from his own eyes._

* * *

_Starsky breezed into Hutch's hospital room without bothering to knock, and found him balancing on his left leg, leaving the cane lying across the bed, stuffing the last of his belongings into a small duffel bag. The metal brace on his right leg looked like a cage. An orderly with a wheelchair stood patiently waiting._

_"Hah! You thought you could sneak off without me? Your red chariot awaits, partner!" Starsky bowed with a flourish and made shooing-away motions at the orderly, taking his place behind the wheelchair._

_"Damn it, Starsk, don't call me that! What are you doing here, anyway? Aren't you supposed to be on duty?"_

_"And what duty could be more important than escorting my partner back to his abode and seeing him into the lap of luxury, I ask you?"_

_Hutch spun around so rapidly that he staggered, and Starsky leaped to grab his shoulders to keep him on his unsteady feet. Hutch shook him off and snatched up the cane instead, trembling with emotion and effort._

_"Stop it, Starsk – I'm not your partner! I can't _ _ be _ _ your partner! Stop treating me like nothing's changed!"_

_"Nothing has," Starsky said softly. "Nothing really important, anyway."_

_"Nothing really important." Hutch's voice dripped bitterness. "I'm a crip, but that's not important. All I qualify for is a desk job, but that's not important. I'm not your partner anymore – and that's not important!"_

_"Hey – you're still my partner. You'll always be my partner."_

_"What does it take to get through that thick skull of yours? I'm not your partner, damn it! Partners help each other. Partners back each other up. Partners rely on each other."_

_"Yeah, like you can rely on me. So?"_

_"_ _ You _ _ can't rely on _ _ me _ _!" It was almost a shout, and the naked despair in it stripped Hutch bare. His eyes glittered with tears that wouldn't fall, and he tore his gaze away from Starsky's face to look at anything else, anything at all. His knuckles clenched white on the handle of the cane. "I'm no good to you any more, Starsk – don't you see? I can't back you up. I can't _ _ be _ _ your partner. Hell, I can't even be a cop. Desk sergeant, evidence clerk – that's not a cop, that's a fake, that's a pity. That's not me."_

_"I never said it was."_

_"Well, your partner's not me either. It's the guy you're riding with now; the guy you have to count on like he's counting on you. Somebody you can trust to be at your back – somebody who can keep up with you to be there when you need him." His eyes touched Starsky's for one short grieving second, then dropped away again to the hand locked on the head of the cane. "I can't do it any more, Starsk," he said, and his voice grated like broken glass. "I can't keep up. I wouldn't be there. If you needed me, you'd be dead." He looked up, and this time didn't flinch away. "And I couldn't live with that."_

_The moment stretched to unbearable length, and neither seemed able to move. Finally, Starsky cleared his throat._

_"So. What do we do now?"_

_They eyed each other, each for the first time in years uncertain about the other's response._

_"I don't know," Hutch admitted, and then cocked an eyebrow and twitched a lip in what might otherwise have been a smile. "Say goodnight, Gracie?" he suggested._

_"Goodnight, Gracie," Starsky parroted obediently, and waited a beat. Neither laughed, but the room seemed somehow lighter. Starsky shrugged and jiggled the wheelchair. "You still need to check out and get home, and I'm still here with a car. Whadda ya say?"_

_"Goodnight, Gracie?" The effort was lame, but both of them smiled, and Hutch limped to the chair, leaning heavily on the cane. While Hutch grimaced and awkwardly settled his braced right leg, Starsky retrieved the duffel from the bed. When Hutch looked up, Starsky feinted at a nonexistent basket, then tossed the duffel in an easy pass to Hutch. As Hutch yanked it across his lap, to hold along with the cane, Starsky grabbed the wheelchair handles and started to push._

_"And they're coming down the court ..." he mock-announced as they started barreling down the corridor, and a surprised nurse darted out of the way. His voice wasn't entirely even, and Hutch sat too stiffly for comfort, but it was a start._

* * *

"Hey: Earth to Starsky, anybody home?"

Cheryl's voice and her hand on his arm jerked him back to a silent car and a night lit by flashing police lights, and he took a deep breath and shook his head.

"Sorry - I must be more tired than I thought." He turned the key in the ignition, and then, on a thought, reached down into his pocket to bring out the almost-forgotten little red car. He looked at it a moment, and then finally chuckled and handed it to her.

"I think you'd better hide this. Hutch always did hate that car."

_End of Act One_


	2. Act Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _This is not intended to infringe upon any trademark rights or copyrights held by Spelling/Goldberg Productions, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures Television, the American Broadcasting Company, Sony Television, or others in connection with the names and likenesses of characters depicted in the 1975-1979 television series _ _ **Starsky &amp; Hutch** _

**Starsky &amp; Hutch: Together Again**

_   
**Opened Minds**   
_

Copyright 1995, Bardicvoice

  
**Act Two**   


"Sociology?" Starsky was incredulous. "You got a degree in _sociology_?"

"Worse than that," Hutch said. "I teach it, too."

The two men sat in Starsky's living room, Hutch sprawled indolently on the couch and Starsky perched on the edge of the chair at right angles to him. They were so absorbed in each other that they had hardly noticed when the women, as if by mutual agreement, had retreated to the kitchen. They weren't at all aware of being watched.

* * *

Sitting at the kitchen table, watching the two men talk, Cheryl sipped her coffee – the ostensible excuse for her and Denise's move – and set the cup gently back into the saucer cradled in her palm. She looked up with shining eyes at Denise, who sat easily balanced on one hip on the edge of the table.

"For whatever part you played in making this happen," Cheryl said, pointing with her chin at the two men in the other room as both of them laughed at some comment, " – thank you."

Denise shook her head.

"I had very little to do with it. He'd made up his mind already; he just needed someone to rub his nose in it."

"He always was stubborn," Cheryl agreed, and smiled in fond memory. "Well, they both were, but then – it was like they were one person. I mean, you almost never heard someone refer to either one of them alone: it was always 'Starsky'n'hutch,' like it was one name for one guy. It was just – right. And then when Hutch left – you could still hear it: 'Starsky and – ' and then this blankness, where half his soul had gone. He limped as badly as Hutch did, but with his heart, not his leg."

"Scratch one, and the other bleeds," Denise said, and Cheryl nodded.

"Oh, yes. And that always ran both ways." She watched the current flow between them, and smiled ruefully.

"Dave proposed a month to the day after Hutch left. I knew he did it for all the wrong reasons – God, he was so lost and so lonely a stone would have felt it – but I wasn't ashamed or too noble to take advantage. And I've never regretted it, not once." She laughed quietly, low in her throat. "I suppose I should be jealous, now that Hutch is back – but all he's done is fill in the missing piece, that makes Dave whole again. Does that make any sense?"

"More than you know. Well, as much as you know." When Cheryl glanced up at her, questioning, Denise shrugged and smiled. "Like you said – halves of a whole. What you saw in Dave, I saw in Hutch." The smile flashed into a grin. "Hutch: you know, he never used that name up north. He buried everything from his past and never referred to it at all. His friends just called him Ken. But now – I can't imagine anything else fitting him so well."

* * *

The living room had gotten quiet, and Hutch's relaxed ease had transformed into strain. Forcing his words, he looked down at his hands or off to the side; anywhere but at Starsky's face.

"I guess I – needed someone," Hutch said. "I threw so much away when I left – Pam was a physical therapist, up at the clinic. At least she could deal with this," and a bitter gesture took in his leg and the cane that lay on the coffee table, "– without pity. We got involved, and then we got married – and then we found out just how big a mistake that had been. You'd think I'd have learned with Vanessa, but no: I had to go and do it all over again, all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons. We scratched at each other like cats, then we made up, and then we broke it all apart again. One time, we did more than just make up: we had twins, both girls. Beth and Amy – they'd be thirteen, now, just last month." He fell silent, but Starsky didn't push him, and he expelled a hard breath, squinting his eyes shut and lacing his fingers together until his knuckles went white.

"Between the quarrels and the problems and the pain I drank too much. When Pam filed for divorce and custody, I couldn't even fight it worth a damn. I haven't seen my kids for nine years, not since they were four and a judge said I didn't have the right. I haven't had a drink for that long, either."

While he had been talking, Starsky reached out and laid a hand on his left leg, silent support that helped him swallow and go on.

"I got scared, Starsk. I looked in the mirror and saw an addict and a loser, and I got scared. I was a bit late, maybe, but I figured I either had to pull it together or put a gun to my head, and I didn't much like that idea. So, I turned it around. I moved again – Oregon, this time – settled in at the university, started over. And now I'm here." He took a long breath, then snorted and shook his head.

"God, I never thought I'd be telling you this; never figured on telling anybody, I guess. Once upon a time – well, none of it would even have happened then, would it?" He finally looked up to meet Starsky's eyes.

"If wishes were horses, a lotta things wouldn't've happened," Starsky offered quietly. "Starting with a bootleg police scanner on pier nine."

"Some excuse," Hutch said, with a pained little attempt at a chuckle. "I've given up on looking back and making excuses." He shot a quick, unreadable glance at Denise, who was sharing a smiling comment with Cheryl in the kitchen. Starsky followed his look.

"You and Denise seem pretty tight," Starsky observed, making his own guesses, and Hutch opened his palms.

"Yeah, well – if there's one thing I've learned in the last week, it's that sleeping with a shrink can do interesting things to your head." Almost shyly, he met Starsky's eyes again, and both his shoulders and his eyebrows fractionally rose and fell. "I don't recommend it if you want to keep secrets, but if you need to get rid of a few – hard to imagine a better way to do it."

"You can always try dumping on a partner," Starsky said, gripping his shoulder hard and giving him a little shake and a bit of a smile. Hutch dropped his head and shook it, then looked up, blinking, taking deep breaths to restore his control, and put his hand on top of Starsky's.

"Thanks, pal."

* * *

Unnoticed, the women in the kitchen watched the emotional currents eddy and shift during the unheard dialogue between the two men. At the worst of it, seeing the starkness in Hutch's face, Cheryl shook her head, eyebrows drawn down with shared pain, and her voice grieved for what he was clearly feeling.

"God, what he must have gone through," she whispered. A light touch on her shoulder brought her eyes back to Denise, and she was surprised at the other woman's obvious serenity.

"He's beaten it," Denise said, and though her calm words were for Cheryl, her eyes rested on Hutch with quiet pride. "The pain will always be there, and he'll have his bad days just like anybody else, but that won't rule him again. Not any more." She glanced at Cheryl, smiling. "Your husband just did something I couldn't have managed in years." Her eyes went back to Hutch, and the expression on her face was pure contentment. "Heal."

* * *

Hutch patted the hand that still rested at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, and when he exhaled, more than just tension drained away. Meeting Starsky's concerned look, his eyes were tired, but no longer haunted or hesitant; something of the old fire was back. Unspoken reassurances ran both ways, and both men indefinably relaxed. They allowed a silence to fill the gap, taking them past the rough edges of emotions too intense for comfort to the calmer place where an unbreakable friendship still waited undisturbed by time and storms.

Coming back to an awareness of his surroundings, Hutch let his eyes rove around the room until they stopped of their own accord on the cluster of photographs grouped on the end table beside the couch. Family photos, they held smiling faces: Starsky, Cheryl, a boy about twelve years old, and a little girl about six. Hutch picked up one group picture and studied it, then looked up at Starsky with eyes of compassion, his own hurts forgotten and replaced by his friend's.

"Hey, partner," he said softly, and Starsky reached to take the photo from his hand, looking at it and then back to Hutch's face.

"You play the hand you're dealt," he said simply. "Most ways, I've been lucky: I haven't been alone. I've got a wife who's stronger than I'll ever be, and a son who's – well, you'll meet him – and memories of the sweetest little girl who'll always be perfect and always be here." His eyes were suspiciously bright and his chin trembled ever so slightly, but his smile still won out as it always had, and all Hutch could do was nod and return it, and reach out to grip Starsky's wrist.

"I think it's about time we saved them from themselves, don't you?" Cheryl abandoned her long-empty cup on the table and stood up. "If we leave them to it, they really will try to relive fifteen years in a night."

"It looks as if they already have," Denise said, but she stood agreeably and collected both cups to set on the sink counter as they walked out into the speaking silence that held the two men. Not until Denise sat beside Hutch and rested a hand on his bad leg and Cheryl walked behind Starsky to put her arms around his neck did the men stir and really take notice of them. Even then, the link between them held; Hutch put his right arm automatically around Denise's waist and Starsky put his left hand on his wife's joined ones, but Starsky's right hand still clasped Hutch's left.

Cheryl bent forward and brushed her lips across Starsky's hair.

"Do you guys have any idea how long you've been sitting here?" she asked rhetorically. "I think the moss is starting to grow."

"Is that what he's got up there?" Hutch teased. "I wondered how he was keeping all that hair."

"Hey, blondie ‒ much as I hate to disrupt this particular reunion, some of us need to get some sleep, and since it's already tomorrow, we'd better start soon," Denise said. "We still have a bit of a drive to get home. What do you say we make an appointment to pick this up later on today, hey?"

The two men shared a look, and they smiled at the same instant.

"Not a bad idea," Starsky said and stood up, Cheryl freeing him to move. He hauled on Hutch's hand to help his partner to his feet, and Denise collected the cane on the way up. Hutch didn't even seem to notice its absence as he limped toward the door, not with Starsky at his side.

"If you've got some time, I'd like to bounce some ideas off your head," Starsky continued. "About this campus killer thing ‒ you might be able to fill in some holes, since you're on the inside track over there. Whaddaya say?"

"Like old times," Hutch said, and used his weight to bring Starsky to a halt and swing him around so that they faced each other. His face was tired but his eyes were clear, and his smile was an invitation. "You don't ever have to ask, Starsk." He paused, then held out his opened arms, and Starsky moved into the offered embrace without hesitation. They hugged each other tightly, and Hutch dropped his forehead to rest on Starsky's shoulder. "I owe you, buddy," he whispered, and felt Starsky shake his head.

"Welcome home, pal. Just ‒ stay for a while, okay?"

"That's a promise."

They held on for a moment longer, then set each other back. Starsky suddenly grinned.

"How about we meet for lunch?"

"God, tell me your taste in food has improved over the years," Hutch begged, and Starsky chuckled.

"More shades of old times ‒ sort of, anyway. What would you say to Huggy's?"

"You're kidding!"

"As I live and breathe," Starsky promised piously. "It's not the Pits anymore, though: he runs a place called Prince Nairobi, at 35th and Beecher. Hey ‒ seeing's believing, and you gotta see this place."

"You're telling me? I'll be there. Noon?"

"Make it eleven-thirty." Starsky waggled his eyebrows at Denise. "Bring your ladyfriend; we could use a good shrink on this one, if she's willing."

"You'd have to beat me off with a stick," Denise laughed.

"We'll be there," Hutch said. Denise put the cane into his hand as Cheryl opened the door to let them out. The two men paused again in the doorway, eyes locking; then Hutch nodded and smiled and turned away. Denise winked at Cheryl and caught up to Hutch in two quick strides. Cheryl had to physically shift Starsky out of the way to close the door behind them.

Inside the house, silence held for a moment; then Starsky came out of his reverie to look at Cheryl and finally see her. With a sudden whoop he swept her up in his arms and spun her around the living room, both of them laughing. In a transport of delight, he finished with a long kiss, and then looked down at her roguishly.

"Mmmm ‒ now I _do_ feel fifteen years younger!"

* * *

Out in the driveway, Hutch stopped at the front fender of his car and put out a hand to rest on the hood as he swayed with sudden dizziness. Denise was instantly at his side.

"Ken ‒ Hutch? You okay?"

He looked up at the stars and blinked tears out of his eyes, then looked down at her face. Leaning on the cane, he brought up his left hand to cup her cheek.

"Yeah. For the first time in a long time ‒ yeah." They stood that way for a long moment, and then he finally smiled. "But I think you'd better drive; the way I'm shaking, I'd put us in a ditch."

"Been there, done that ‒ don't care to repeat it." She stood on tiptoes to kiss him lightly, and picked the keys out of his pocket at the same time. Instead of stepping away, though, she reached up to touch his cheek, then rested her hand on his chest. "You really are home, you know," she said softly. "From here on, it gets easier."

"No way," he said, but he was smiling. "Right now, I could fly ‒ and it just doesn't get any easier than that. It doesn't have to."

She smiled back, and then turned to unlock the car.

* * *

"I don't believe it." Hutch swung the car neatly in to the curb almost in front of the restaurant, just behind Starsky's unmarked police sedan. The Prince Nairobi was in an upscale business neighborhood worlds away from the filthy alleys and mean streets that had surrounded the Pits, and the entrance somehow managed to combine elegance with a breath of the African veldt. The mixed race foursome heading into the restaurant as Hutch killed the engine were obvious young executives nattily attired in six hundred dollar suits: the movers and shakers of yuppiedom, people who wouldn't have known that the Pits existed, much less survived a trip through its doors.

Starsky had been leaning against his car, waiting for them, a manila envelope folded in his arms. As he uncoiled and stood up, he grinned at Hutch's incredulous expression, and the grin stayed in place as he opened Denise's door and handed her out to the sidewalk.

"Not what you expected, huh?"

Hutch got out of the car purely on automatic, never taking his eyes from the unbelievable facade.

"How'd Huggy get the brass to open a place with this much class?" he managed finally, the sweep of his left hand taking in the neighborhood as well as the restaurant.

"You won't believe this: one of his wild-ass schemes actually paid off. Some dumb stretch-band gizmo he was peddling for one of his cousins turned into the latest fitness craze ‒ you can buy the thing on QVC, for crying out loud. Hug cleaned up, sold the Pits, and opened the Prince four ‒ no, five years ago."

"You're right; I don't believe it."

"Hey ‒ gimme two minutes alone to set him up, okay? This is gonna be priceless!" Starsky clapped Hutch on the arm and nearly danced to the door. Just outside, he deliberately reined in and made a conscious effort to sober up, taking a deep breath and putting on a straight face that he spoiled only with one quick wink before turning away and disappearing through the door. Hutch stood shaking his head and chuckling.

"He's still a kid at heart," he said. Denise tucked in close to his side and slid her arm around his waist.

"I like him," she said. "You have good taste in partners."

"Yeah, well, wait'll you meet Huggy. He was kind of our third wheel ‒ started out in trouble, but turned into a friend. A hustler and a ham, maybe, but a true friend." The memories were all around him now, wherever he turned, but they seemed to have lost their capacity to hurt since he'd given up trying to avoid them. He smiled at the images that flashed across his mind. "He got into a lot of scrapes, helping us out. I still can't believe some of the stuff we pulled! ‒ but he was always there when we needed him, no matter what we needed him for. And when the chips were down, hey, he was always up. He had a gift for looking on the bright side and always believing that things would work out."

"That's a gift I wish he could have given you," she said softly. He glanced down at her with a smile and squeezed her in a brief hug.

"Now I have you, and Starsk, _and_ Huggy; every side I see is bright. The world looks a whole lot different than it did, day before yesterday; hell, than yesterday."

"Just don't let it cloud up again, Mister Sunshine." She fisted him lightly in the ribs, and he bent and kissed her hair.

"It's about time for our grand entrance. Just sit back and enjoy the show."

"Wouldn't miss it for the world!"

* * *

"Yeah, couple of college professors," Starsky was saying as the door opened. His eyes registered Hutch and Denise's entrance, but gave nothing away, and Huggy, facing him, had his back to the door. Hutch and Denise slipped through the opening with exaggerated care, and Hutch kept hold of the door to close it as silently as he'd opened it.

"What, are you finally trying to improve your education?" From behind, Hutch couldn't really make out all that much, but in the essentials, Huggy didn't seem to have changed; still slender as the proverbial rail, he bubbled with energy that never seemed to flag. Two differences from the past stood out all the more against those background constants, though: his voice was smooth, with none of the accent or rhythm of the streets, and his attire was impeccable, a stylish cross between American and African designs that overlaid a dark, carefully tailored business suit with a draped scarf of boldly patterned but subtly colored silk. "Much though I hate to admit it, Starsky, I am afraid that's a lost cause in your case."

The opening was too perfect to pass up.

"Oh, I dunno about that," Hutch drawled lazily. "Sometimes you _can_ teach an old cop new tricks."

Huggy whipped around at the sound of his voice, and Starsky took the one long easy stride that put him at Hutch's side and let him keep Huggy's face in view.

"'Specially when the street gets in its licks," Starsky agreed, instantly picking up the old rap-rhyming game, and Hutch caught his cue without pause.

"And old friends enter into the mix ..."

"Even the blonds from out in the sticks ..."

"The ones that you called Midwestern hicks ..."

"Who use the occasion to get their cheap kicks!" Starsky finished triumphantly, and the two men reached out simultaneously to "slap five" with their right hands.

"How's it hanging, Hug?" Hutch asked innocently.

Throughout the exchange, Huggy had stared at them in incredulous surprise that only deepened to astonished disbelief. By the time he found his tongue and could get a word in edgewise, his cultured accent had fled and taken all of his polished urbanity with it.

"Hutch, m'man, ain't 'choo a sight for sore eyes! What it is, what it is!" He grabbed Hutch's right hand to pump it madly in greeting, then swept him into a quick hug as well. "Thought sure I'd seen the last'uh ya when even the brother here couldn't find'ja. Where ya _been_, man? _How_ ya been?"

Over his head, Hutch's eyes crossed Starsky's, and a rueful message passed; then Hutch half-stepped back to look Huggy up and down.

"Doesn't matter," Hutch said. "I'm here now, and I'm fine ‒ and I'm one of those college professors Starsky was talking about. I'd like you to meet the other one, too ‒" He turned and reached behind him to draw Denise into their little group. "Denise Bay, meet Huggy Bear Brown ‒ or do you prefer something a bit more highbrow these days, Hug?"

Huggy reassembled his dignity with an effort and captured Denise's hand to bow over it with continental flair.

"Pay no attention to the blond boor, my dear lady," he said, fairly oozing unctuous charm through every refined and cultured syllable. "I am truly delighted to meet you, and to welcome you to my humble establishment. My _friends _call me Huggy, and I would be honored if you would, too." His smile was infectious.

"Thank you, Huggy ‒ I will. The honor is mine. Please call me Denise, or just Neese if you'd like."

"Your wish is my command."

"_My_ wish is a table," Starsky said. "I'm starving."

Huggy fixed him with a steely eye.

"And whose fault is that, pray tell? Who insisted on putting on a comedy act in the foyer?"

"Gotta admit, we had you going!"

Huggy ignored them and addressed himself to Denise.

"If you'll just come this way, Denise, I can promise you an excellent repast ‒" he drew her hand through the curve of his elbow and began to escort her into the dining room, neatly extracting her from between the two partners. Tossing a wicked grin behind, she went with him, leaving Starsky and Hutch to trade glances, shrug, and follow them. The corner table he presented them was adroitly placed to allow an overview of the entire restaurant, including the door, and none of the three were surprised when Huggy, continuing his introductory spiel, sat down with them, keeping one eye on his domain and the other on his friends.

"We have a number of vegetarian and health food items on the menu, as well as some African delicacies and more traditional American fare." Huggy sniffed disparagingly in Starsky's direction. "I've found quality and variety ‒ not hamburgers and fries ‒ to be the keys to success in this business."

"Yeah, well, me 'n Hutch were your inspiration, remember? 'Any place that could've satisfied the both of you would be bound to make a killing' ‒ isn't that what you said when you opened this place? And why you've got burgers and fries on the menu right along with seaweed, rabbit food 'n highfalutin' antelope?"

"Y'know ‒" Hutch leaned over and ostentatiously stage-whispered to Denise. "Most ritzy restaurants offer burgers so parents can find something their kids'll eat."

"Kids?" Starsky protested in mock outrage. "Who're you calling a kid?"

Denise was frankly laughing.

"You guys are too much." She raised helpless hands to Huggy. "How did you survive ten years of this dynamic duo?"

"With great difficulty and endless patience," Huggy answered fastidiously, and then grinned. "And lots and lots o' burgers and beers. Speaking of which ..."

"Root beer for me," Starsky said promptly. Hutch raised an eyebrow at Denise, and she nodded.

"Just water for the two of us," he said.

"You three just sit right and tight, I'll make the kitchen see the light," Huggy said, and stood. "Do you want menus, or will you trust me?"

"Trust is good," Hutch said, smiling.

"Yeah ‒ it's only dangerous when it's a Huggy Bear surprise," Starsky added darkly.

"You're getting the Special, not the Surprise," Huggy answered archly. He bowed to Denise. "Dear lady, can you survive alone in the company of these maniacs for a moment?"

"I'm sure of it, Huggy."

"Then I'll settle things with the kitchen and be back shortly. Bide!" He swept away, collaring two dashiki-clad waiters on the way, and the waters and root beer were heading for the table even before Huggy disappeared in the general direction of the kitchen. An elegant black woman in a long dress matching the colors and pattern of Huggy's scarf replaced him to play hostess at the door.

Hutch looked around admiringly and shook his head, taking a sip from the water as soon as it arrived.

"I still don't believe this ‒ it's beautiful, but I keep expecting a pool table in a dim, smoky bar with a cast of eccentrics." He cocked his head at Starsky. "And what are you doing for an ear on the streets, now that Huggy's gone uptown on you?"

"Don't believe it. The Prince may be as uptown as you can get, but Hug's heart is still in the old neighborhood; he's the sugarman behind the youth center in the projects. He still does a good line in patter and jive, and now he's got the kids' ears along with his own; he's still the best source there is for what's shakin'." He grinned. "Talkin' at the Prince is safer than the Pits ever was, though; the lowlifes don't come this close to the surface." His smile faded. "Wish they came as far as the campus, though; then Hug might be able to help with this one."

Hutch nodded at the manila envelope that Starsky had set absently on one corner of the table.

"The campus murders?"

"Got 'psycho' written all over it," Starsky agreed glumly. "We've got three professors, no link between 'em that I can see, each one throttled unconscious and then killed by having three holes drilled in their skulls, one behind each ear and the last one smack in the middle of the back of the head." He looked up in time to catch the strained expression on Denise's face, and grimaced. "Sorry. Should'a warned you first. We haven't released that bit about the three holes."

"I understand," she said. "And it's okay. I've worked with the Portland police on a few cases; I know the drill." She winced. "Umm ‒ I didn't mean that the way it sounded."

Hutch was already reaching for the manila folder.

"These the case files?" He was opening it even before Starsky nodded, and Denise shifted her chair to be able to look on as he took out a series of typed sheets and photographs.

"Not much there. Like I said ‒ no apparent links, except that all three were male. Two were married, one single, ages ranged from twenty-eight to sixty-three, none of them was in the same department, and while the university's still got some records checks going, doesn't look like they had any students in common unless someone out there was taking physics, ballet, and German literature."

"Tenure?"

"Two yes, one no ‒ the ballet guy was a visiting prof, been there less'n six months."

"And the killer?" Denise asked.

"Forensics says probably male, six foot or over, right-handed, and very strong. He throttled them with his hands, from the side or behind. Probably wore gloves; we couldn't get any DNA traces. None of the victims was able to score on him, either; no skin, no blood, no hair left behind. No witnesses. The dancer was hit backstage at the theater, the lit guy after hours in the research library, and the physics prof outdoors on the path to the faculty parking lot. The only constant's been that each murder's been on the campus on a Tuesday night. The second one happened four weeks after the first; the third one came two weeks after the second."

"He's speeding up," Hutch mused.

"Yeah," Starsky said sourly. "Better watch yourself, babe; he might be lookin' to do a sociologist next week."

"And the murder weapon?" Denise asked.

"Coroner says it could be anything from a hand drill to a battery-operated trepanning tool. Whatever it is, it leaves a nice neat three-eighths-inch hole behind ‒ right through the bone and an inch and a half into the brain."

Denise shuddered and even Hutch twitched at that image. Starsky wondered fleetingly whether he'd been a cop too long, or whether he'd just become inured to the grisly details through being too close to the case.

"We're no closer to catching this guy than we were a week after the first murder. There's gotta be _somethin'_ ‒ I mean, even psychos got their own logic. We've just had zero luck in finding it."

"Well, I ‒ we ‒ can do some asking around," Hutch said, casting a quick glance at Denise and getting a firm nod in response. "We've got the perfect cover ‒ it would seem pretty strange if we _didn't_ get curious, and faculty gossip is worse than anything I ever heard in a cop locker room. If there's any link between these guys, we'll hear it, guaranteed."

"Yeah, well, just be careful, okay? Remember ‒ you got no backup," Starsky fretted.

"Hey, like the song says ‒ 'I got you, babe.' I promise I won't kick over any hornet's nests, Mom, and I'll holler at the first sign of trouble."

"See that you do."

The somber mood at the table was swept away by the arrival of Huggy with a waiter carrying a heavily laden tray. Starsky rubbed his hands in anticipation as the dishes were set down and delectable aromas wafted up to tease their noses.

"Lady and gentlemen ‒ I use the latter term advisedly ‒ voila! Lunch is served! For you, madam, adventurous enough to accompany these two wild men, the lean and tender braised antelope, served with delicate rice, steamed vegetables, and a tart berry sauce. For the peroxide professor, so mysteriously returned from parts unknown, a world salad of only the very finest greens, including Romaine, raddichio, saltiva, and Belgian endive, enlivened with raisins, carrots, walnuts, and radishes, sprinkled with wheat germ and sunflower seeds, and dressed with a raspberry vinaigrette garnished with bruised mint leaves. And, for our favorite member of L.A.'s finest ‒" Huggy sighed heavily, set the plate down with a thud, and abandoned his theatrical delivery. "A garlic cheeseburger with bacon, mushrooms, onions, pickles, and blue cheese dressing, and fries with barbecue sauce."

"Yes!" Starsky crowed, shook out his napkin, and tucked it into his collar. Huggy shrugged, Hutch looked martyred, and Denise burst out laughing.

Lunch was great.

* * *

The seminar team faculty meeting that afternoon was a heaven-sent opportunity for judicious probing. All eight of the team faculty were present, sitting in a loose circle; abandoning formality, they'd dragged the chairs away from the conference table, so nothing stood between them. Holly Sanderson, the effervescent forty-something professor of economics who had designed the course and headed up the multidisciplinary team, sat immediately to Hutch's left. To her left was Jefferson Brooks, a trim and athletic chemist and industrial engineer in his mid-thirties. Beyond Brooks was Raymond Wolfe, a ponderous historian in his middle sixties. Denise sat beside Brooks, directly across the circle from Hutch: a deliberate choice that they had made automatically, without discussion, because it gave both of them full view of each other as well as every other instructor. Christina Wu came next: a delicate public health specialist in her late forties or early fifties. Beside her was Tony DeFiore, at twenty-six the youngest of the group, a pony-tailed, powerfully built political science teacher who looked more like a physical education coach. Chandri Srivastava from the school of business administration completed the set, a dapper man in his late thirties.

"Okay," Holly said. "Let's see if we got this straight. Thursday night is mostly your show, Tony. Ken will set it up by running through the consumer scenario, and then toss it on to you. For the last half hour, you pitch it to Shan. I'll play moderator, and Neese will be our _agent provocateur_ stirring up trouble and argument in the audience. Jeff, Tina, Raymond ‒ you're off the hook until next Tuesday, when we do the reg development stuff. That sound about right?"

Murmurs of agreement ran around the room, and Holly grinned.

"Good. Then I move we adjourn. Teaching the summer session shouldn't mean that we miss all the sun 'n fun, and I hear the surf's up." She winked ostentatiously at Tony, whose tan proclaimed his taste for outdoor activities, and he grinned as he stood.

"Far as I'm concerned, that's the best thing about this course," he said. "Each of us is only doing one-eighth of the work!"

"Perhaps, but there's more of it," Wolfe observed. "This business of having all of our segments interlock, using one lecture to lead into someone else's scenario ‒ it's not natural."

"Oh, don't be a grouch," Tina admonished him. "I think it's a neat idea ‒ and it's going to keep those kids too off-balance to even be tempted to cut class. Holly, you may just have come up with the biggest attendance-boosting idea of all time, here."

"I'm not sure about that, but I am sure this mixed-subject approach hits closer to real life than the way we usually teach," Chandri said. "Good thinking practice ‒ promotes flexibility."

"Opens minds," Denise agreed. "We're all so used to thinking in our specialties, we impose our narrowness on our students. This is forcing _u_s to be more rounded, more complete; I think we'll get as much out of it as our students will."

"Amen to that," Jeff said. "Even these first coordination sessions have been eye-openers for me. I don't think I'll ever teach quite the way I did before."

"Then Holly's devious plot has already succeeded," Hutch said with a grin.

"Hey ‒ you weren't supposed to figure our my ulterior motive quite so fast," Holly complained. "You and Neese have been cheating again, double-teaming the rest of us."

"Living proof of the benefits of an ongoing multidisciplinary approach," Denise jibed.

"Yeah, well, I knew there was a reason I conned the Board into the expense of importing you two."

"You mean, all the rest of you are local?" Hutch asked.

"Well, yes and no," Chandri said. "I'm a visitor too, but not especially for this course; I'm halfway through a two-year contract as a transfer associate. I'll go back to Stanford next fall."

"And I'm on loan from the city," Tina said, "vacationing from my real job as a health inspector. So I guess I'm local, but not really _university_ local, if you take my meaning."

"I tried for an eclectic mix when I designed the course, but I had to keep our tiny budget in mind," Holly explained. "Frankly, I'd probably have done it all local, except that I wouldn't even have gotten the idea if I hadn't caught your mind-reading, team-teaching act at the Educational Frontiers conference last August. So, folks, if you have complaints ‒ blame Ken and Denise, here. It's all their fault; they did their pitch too well."

"No wonder Tuesday night was so slick!" Tony exclaimed. "I was starting to think you two were telepathic aliens, the way you never missed a beat trading off like that during the lecture."

"Sorry to disappoint you, but it's just practice," Denise said, smiling, as she moved to Hutch's side.

"Lots and lots of practice," Hutch added, and they traded a look.

"Kind of like a comedy team," said Denise.

"You work together on timing ..."

"'Til you get to the point ..."

"Where you finish each other's ..."

"Sentences," they chorused together, and then laughed at the looks on the faces around them. Holly started to applaud.

"Now you see why I wanted these two."

"I'd rather concentrate on teaching, not tricks," Raymond grumbled.

Without even looking, Denise laid a gently restraining hand on Hutch's arm and turned her calm smile on Wolfe.

"I'll use any teaching tool that gets the point across," she said. "After all ‒ that's the whole object of the exercise, wouldn't you agree? Laughter can make a point, and just as importantly, make it stick in the mind."

Wolfe harrumphed, but didn't press the issue.

"_Some_ of us have other courses to prepare for," he said as he collected his bulk and rolled to his feet.

"Well, just be back here Monday at two for the Tuesday prep session," Holly said. "Your historical factors piece takes center stage."

"I know my obligations," he said, unmistakable frost in his voice, and swept out the door. Tony wrinkled his nose.

"Pompous ass," he muttered.

"Hey, cut the man some slack, he's not that bad," Jeff said, and then temporized. "Well, not all the time anyway, but you can't blame him for today. You wouldn't be at your best, either, if one of your friends was just murdered."

"What, you mean ‒ what was his name ‒ Garman? The one they found when we were getting out last night?" Hutch asked.

"Yeah. Raymond and Harry came to the university about the same time, back when most of us were in grade school. They were pretty tight ‒ golf buddies, conservative club, that kind of thing. Got along pretty well, for crossing departmental lines. Guess they were each so wrapped up in their fields, they never found any common areas to disagree on."

"Holly, weren't you telling us there'd been two other murders in the last month or two? Also professors?" Denise asked, and Holly nodded, her usual exuberance sobered.

"Just two weeks ago, it was Gabriel Fontenay. I didn't know him; he was new, just started in the spring term, and he taught dance and some of the theater arts classes, I think. But a month before him, Jerome Willis was killed. I won't forget _that_ night. Jerry was working late, as usual, and his wife Connie had come by to pick him up. She's the one who found him, and I swear, you could have heard that scream from anywhere on campus." She shivered. "I can't imagine what that was like. They were such a nice couple. I met them at my first faculty reception, years ago, and they just went out of their way to make me feel welcome and at home. What happened ‒ it was just awful."

"The really awful part is not knowing who's next," Chandri said. "I mean, think about it ‒ from what I can see, any of us could be targets."

"Come on," said Hutch. "There must have been some reason for the three of them to have been picked, out of all the faculty here."

"I think that's what's driving the police so crazy," Tina offered. "There just _aren't_ any links. We've all been playing the game, I know ‒ the 'how-can-I-be-sure-I'm-not-next' game ‒ and I don't think anyone's come up with a comfortable answer, except that for once we've got some nut going after men instead of attacking women."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that," Tony said. "Gabe was as close to a woman as makes no difference." When the others turned to stare at him, he flushed. "Well, hey, it's no secret he was a flaming queen. He obviously didn't care who knew, the way he traipsed around."

"Tony!" Holly's disapproval was clear.

"What's the matter ‒ I'm not being PC enough for you?" he shot back. "Look, I couldn't've cared less if he'd had a thing for goats; all I'm saying is, he flaunted it, and he didn't care what anybody thought of it, either. Hell, he didn't care about anything that didn't have to do with the stage."

"A little respect would still be nice," Holly said firmly. "From all accounts, sexual orientation aside, he was good at what he did."

"He sure was one hell of an athlete," Jeff said. "What I can't figure is, how somebody took him down so fast without a major fight. I mean, Harry was an old geezer, and Jerry was no fitness nut, but Gabe was a _dancer_, for crying out loud. He was quick as a cat and could bench-press ballerinas like fluff. Whoever took him down had to be something else, and a total surprise to boot."

Tina shivered.

"I, for one, have had enough of this. It seems that every conversation around here turns to murder, lately. I don't _want_ to talk about it any more. I just want it to be over." She shivered again, and shook her head. "I'm outta here, guys. See you Monday."

"I'll walk with you, if you're going past the Union," Chandri offered, and the two of them left together.

"The lady's got a point," Tony said. "I keep wondering what cop show I've wandered into."

"Care to wander into a tennis match instead?" Jeff asked, as both of them headed out the door. Tony's answer was lost down the corridor.

"Fastest way I know to break up a conversation," Holly said cheerily. "Just get everybody back to the same uncomfortable point in the campus killer question."

"Sorry, Holly," Denise said.

"Not your fault, honey. We may not want to talk about it, but we just can't resist; just like poking a sore tooth with your tongue. Happens all the time. Hey ‒ are you two finding everything you need? Getting along okay in the big city?"

"What kind of a hick town do you think Portland is?" Denise laughed. "We're fine."

"I used to live here, a long time ago," Hutch volunteered. "I've been looking up old friends."

"And helping me make new ones," Denise chimed in, smiling.

"Well, like Raymond, I've got a couple of other classes I need to prepare for, so I'll leave you to it. You just remember ‒ you need anything, you come to me."

"You bet," Hutch said. "Would you like an escort to wherever you're going? We'd be happy to walk you."

"Are you implying that I'm a dog?" Holly asked, eyes twinkling, but waved him off before he could protest. "Just teasing. Forget it. It's the middle of a Wednesday afternoon; I think I'm safe enough. Just go and enjoy yourselves." She winked and left.

"What wonderful advice," Denise said suggestively, sliding into the curve of Hutch's arm. He didn't react, and she took a half-step back, assessing the look of absorbed concentration on his face. "Now, that's a cop face if I ever saw one."

"Hmm?" He realized belatedly that she was studying him with patient anticipation. "Sorry. It's just ‒ there's something there. I can feel it ‒ an itch, just out of reach."

"Can I help scratch?"

He smiled despite himself.

"Any time." He gave her an absent hug, his eyes already shifting to focus off into some private middle distance. "I can't quite nail it ..."

"Would it help more to talk, or just leave it to simmer in the background for a while?" He hesitated for a long moment.

"Simmer, I think. Some things just don't come 'til they're ready."

She groaned.

"God, what a line. And I thought _I_ was bad."

"What ‒ oh." He actually blushed, then assumed a fake leer. "Wanna see my etchings, little girl?"

"Your letchings? I already have, you lecher!" She tickled him in the ribs, and they both laughed until he managed to capture her hands. She felt the mood change, then, and got serious. "Where do we go from here, Detective Hutchinson?"

"How about a campus crime scene tour? Maybe seeing them will jog something. I don't think that's it, but ..."

"... it's a start," she finished. "Well, at least it's a nice day for a stroll."

* * *

Starsky was humming absently as he crossed the squad room to his office, keeping time with an added little bounce in his stride. Detectives Consuela Hidalgo and John Harris looked up from their desks at him, and then at each other.

"This might be a good time to ask for that raise, _hermano_," Hidalgo stage-whispered loudly.

"I don't know ‒ you think he's really that far gone?"

"He is in full command of his faculties," Starsky announced airily.

"You sure, boss? Don't think I've seen you like this since you danced on the table at Gerenetti's retirement party."

Starsky drew himself portentously up to his full height and fixed them with an exaggerated steely glare.

"Are you implying that I am drunk, Detective Hidalgo? Bring on the breathalyser, and you will find not the slightest trace of alcohol in my system."

"It's obscene for anyone to be that cheery without being drunk," Harris grumbled.

"Last night's anniversary dinner must've been _really_ good," Hidalgo said.

"You have no idea," Starsky said. He cocked his head, studying them. "How long you been on the force, Hidalgo?"

"Eight years."

Starsky raised an enquiring eyebrow at Harris, and the man shrugged.

"Twelve years. Why?"

Starsky smiled and shook his head.

"Babes in the woods. You wouldn't understand." He changed mental gears with the ease of long practice. "We gotten anything from Vedette on the Garman autopsy yet?"

"Yeah ‒ the report came up just after you left for lunch. Copy's on your desk." A trace of excitement crept into Harris' voice. "We're maybe getting lucky ‒ looks like our killer left a couple hairs behind. Either that, or Garman was getting a little on the side."

"Vedette's narrowed his guesses on the killer, too," Hidalgo chimed in. "Took some nice imprints off Garman's throat. Given the size of the hands and the angle on the grip, our killer's probably between six feet and six four. If the stray hairs are his, he's Caucasian, light brown hair a bit on the long side, long enough for a pony tail, anyway; that may be why we hadn't gotten any traces before, if he had it tied back out of the way."

"All right! When did it happen?"

"Best we can figure, between six thirty and seven." Harris referred to his notebook. "Found a couple professors who'd used the path around six-twenty; seems like nobody else came by until after seven, and the path was pretty much in use from then right up until eight, what with evening classes starting. A grad student saw Garman leaving his office at six twenty-five. Looks like the killer caught him on the path, choked him unconscious, and hauled him off into the bushes to finish him. Pretty clear from the blood that he was murdered where he was found. The body was pretty well hidden; couldn't see it from the path. Only reason campus security found him at nine-oh-eight was because the guy was patrolling with a dog."

"God bless dogs. Anything else?"

"Not much. Vedette's leaning toward the murder weapon being battery-powered; says the depth of the holes is just too precise, too consistent for any kind of hand drill, and there's a round mark on the skin around the hole like you'd get if you sank a drill bit all the way up to the sleeve locking it in place." Hidalgo's nose wrinkled. "His image, not mine."

"Wonderful." Starsky's eyes lost focus as they ran through the facts sorted in his mind. "Even battery-powered, drilling those holes must have taken a few minutes; how'd he know he'd have time before someone else came by on the path?"

Harris and Hidalgo traded a look.

"Most day classes end around five-thirty or six," Harris said. "The first sets of evening classes begin then, but most of those run two hours, not one, so the second round of classes doesn't begin until seven-thirty to eight. Six-thirty to seven is as dead a time as you can find on campus, particularly on a path to a faculty parking lot; most of the day-timers have left, and the night-timers are all in class."

"Our guy's already shown that he knows the campus pretty well," Hidalgo added. "I mean, that backstage corridor where he iced the dancer isn't exactly on the public tour of the theater building, and he took down the lit guy in the carrels all the way at the back of the library. I didn't even know they were there, and I graduated from that place."

"So he's maybe a student, or a teacher, or a janitor, or somebody else who's around all the time, who's had a chance to scope out the place. Check back on all of the victims; get a feel for their schedules, look at the places they went. I want to know whether they were hit during their usual routines, and I want to know if you figure that the places they were hit were the best ones for it, given their routines."

"Figure out whether they were random, or whether they were deliberately stalked and hit at their most remote spots?"

Starsky looked at Harris approvingly.

"We'll make a detective out of you yet. Somethin' else ‒ now that we're narrowin' what our guy looks like, make nice with the Registrar's office. See if they can search their student records by height and hair color, and provide student ID photos that correspond to any hits. Same thing with the personnel office."

"That's pretty iffy," Hidalgo said. "Even if they're willing, there must be hundreds of potential matches on a campus that big."

"Yeah, well, until we've got enough for a warrant we'll just have to rely on your winning personalities." He paused, then turned up a hand. "So, what are you waiting for, already? Get on it."

Hidalgo and Harris traded eloquent glances, and then Hidalgo shrugged and stood up as Harris reached over to snag his jacket off the back of the chair next to him. Watching their wordless communication brought something else to mind.

"Oh, one more thing. If you run across a fifty-somethin' tall blond guy with a limp askin' a lotta questions ‒ he's on our side. Don't hassle him or get in his way, okay?"

"Oh, great," Harris groaned. "We've got an effing amateur screwing around?"

"Not hardly," Starsky said, amused. "His name's Hutchinson. He used to be my partner." He smiled a little in memory, abruptly unaware of his audience. "Always will be, I guess."

"Umm ‒" Consuela Hidalgo didn't often find herself at a loss for words, but this time not even Harris could help her; she saw the same concern in his eyes, but he raised his shoulders in a questioning shrug, no better able than she to articulate a question that would get the point across without rousing their boss's temper. "He's been ‒ off the force a long time, hasn't he, chief?"

He heard the doubts and implied criticism beneath her delicacy, but even to his own surprise he felt no anger, no automatic surge of protectiveness; just the comfortable calm certainty that this time, Hutch had no need of his defense.

"His leg was crippled, not his mind," he said mildly. "He hasn't lost anything but a badge and a gun, and those aren't what really makes a cop. Right now, he's in the perfect position to give us a hand: he's a guest prof from Oregon, teachin' a night course on campus. He can get away with askin' things no one'd take from us. That makes him an ace we want to keep up our sleeve." He fixed each of them with a 'brook no arguments' look. "I'm not askin' you to take him on; fact, I'd rather you kept your distance. Just know that he's there, and he's ours."

He waited until he got nods from both of them ‒ reluctantly, on Harris's part at least ‒ and then nodded himself.

"Go to it, kids. Catch us a killer."

_End of Act Two_


	3. Act Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _This is not intended to infringe upon any trademark rights or copyrights held by Spelling/Goldberg Productions, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures Television, the American Broadcasting Company, Sony Television, or others in connection with the names and likenesses of characters depicted in the 1975-1979 television series _ _ **Starsky &amp; Hutch** _

**Starsky &amp; Hutch: Together Again**

_ **Opened Minds** _

Copyright 1995, Bardicvoice

  
**Act Three**   


Soft music and soft lights for once failed to set a romantic tone. Hutch sat on the sofa, his fingers absently coaxing a roving, half-random melody from his guitar while his mind was plainly elsewhere. Denise, curled on the floor beside the couch with a notebook computer on her lap, punched keys to save the file, turned off the power, and set the machine aside with a yawning stretch. Leaning her head back, she watched him play for a little while, noting his unfocused eyes and the practiced, automatic movements of his hands as they drew gentle melancholy from steel strings.

"Where are you, Hutch?" she asked, very softly, and he stirred a little.

"Hmm?" Sense only gradually returned to his eyes, but he didn't stop playing. "What'd you say?"

"I asked where you were. I've never heard you play like that before. It's sad."

"Is it? I hadn't noticed." He blinked, and his fingers stopped.

"What were you thinking about?"

"I don't know." He looked up and shrugged, his eyes guileless. "The past, I guess, and why those three men died. A waste."

She reached up and curled her hand gently around his wrist, where it draped across the bridge on the guitar.

"Hey ‒ what happened to the sunshine? Are you forgetting all the good things already?"

"No. Never." He smiled, but it was a fleeting thing. "It's just ‒ some things haven't changed at all. Things you can't help, people you can't save, you wonder why you even try." He glanced at her, and then away off into the past at something only he could see.

"You know, even before I got shot, I thought about quitting. Talked about it a lot. We even did it once, Starsk and I ‒ threw our shields in the ocean and gave up our guns. But we came back. Needed some way to pay the rent, I guess, and this was the way we knew." He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Know why I became a cop?"

Mutely, she shook her head, not wanting to disturb the flow of words.

"You'll laugh at this one. It's the damned motto on the car doors: 'To protect and to serve.' What a joke."

"It's not a joke," she said quietly.

"No? That's because you haven't tried to do it, day after day, sweeping up the same garbage just to see it dumped back onto the streets, always being a day late and a dollar short and getting there just in time to cover the body and look for the tracks. Who cares? It doesn't protect the victims, and they're past being served by anyone or anything."

"And the ones who didn't become victims, those you protected because you tracked the killers down and swept them up before they could kill again? Don't they count for anything?"

He looked at her for a long moment in silence.

"Not enough," he said finally. "Never enough to make up for all the ones you fail."

In one fluid movement she came up off the floor to kneel on the couch beside him, and took his face between her hands.

"It _is_ enough," she insisted. "Not even God saves everyone. You do what you can and rejoice in the wins, and you let the rest go. If you let the losses eat you, you won't be around to help the folk you can."

He swung the guitar off his lap to lean it against the couch, and put his arms around her instead.

"You'd make a hell of a therapist, you know that?" The flash of humor died as quickly as it came, but the shadows in his eyes weren't quite as dark. "Starsky always did better at that ‒ the 'letting it go' part, I mean. Being a cop ‒ it's genetic with him, I think."

"With you too." He started to protest, and she put one hand over his mouth to shut him up. "Look at yourself, Hutchinson. You get smashed up so you can't clean up the streets as a cop anymore, so what do you do? You go into sociology, you study the beliefs and relationships and values of groups of people, you learn how we all tick, and then you become a teacher so that maybe some student someday somewhere down the line will understand and care enough to want and be able to help. 'To protect and to serve' ‒ you're still doing it, no matter what you think. You're just not doing it quite the same way, that's all." She held his eyes with her own unyielding stare. "And you've still got to learn to let the things you can't help go. Stop beating up on yourself. If not for your own sake, then because you hurt other people when you do it."

"Like you?"

"And Starsky. And Huggy. And anyone else who loves you, or depends on you, or looks to you for help. You give up on yourself, you give up on us too."

He traced the line of her cheek with one finger, then leaned forward and kissed her, and settled her more comfortably in the curve of his arm.

"Point taken. But I thought psychologists were supposed to let their patients find out these things on their own. Aren't you breaking some cardinal headshrinker's rule, telling me where I'm going wrong?"

"If I am, tough. You mean more to me than any rulebook." She snuggled against him, and he held her close and bent to brush his lips across her hair.

The doorbell rang.

Denise planted a hand squarely on the center of Hutch's chest for leverage, and pushed back until she could see his face.

"Don't tell me," she said, and he grinned sheepishly.

"Starsky said he might drop by."

"Love me, love my partner, eh?" She kissed the tip of his nose and stood up.

"Hey ‒ count your blessings. In the old days, he'd just have walked in."

"Hope your ladyfriends weren't easily embarrassed," she said over her shoulder as she headed to the door. Hutch collected the computer and the guitar, setting one on the end table and leaning the other up against the back of the sofa. He heard Starsky's voice from down the corridor.

"Hiya, Neese. You oughta get that porch light fixed; almost couldn't find the doorbell. Hey ‒ this is nice." Looking around as he came down the corridor and into the room, Starsky took in the cozy apartment with its multitude of instruments ‒ a piano and a harp were only the most obvious ‒ and the softly-lit hanging garden on the deck beyond the living room's sliding glass doors. "And top o' all this pretty stuff, just cross the street and walk to work, eh? Beats the heck out of a hotel."

"A lot cheaper, too," Denise agreed. "Belongs to a professor of classical music spending the summer at Julliard. We have to keep the piano tuned and the plants watered."

"How'd you ever find this?"

"The gypsy professor grapevine," Hutch said. "On short tours, a lot of us swap homes. We've got an aquatic biologist from Wisconsin staying in our place."

"Good idea. Must be why you guys make the big bucks, huh?"

"Don't we wish. Teachers are right down there with cops on the pay scale."

"The inverse value system," Denise chimed in. "The more important your function in society, the less you get paid. Can I get you anything, Dave?"

"Iced tea?" Hutch suggested. "I'm afraid I don't keep beer any more, and we haven't been around long enough to collect cold leftover pizza."

"Tea'd be fine."

"Tea for three, momentarily." En route to the kitchen, Denise suddenly stopped and shook her head. "Good God, Huggy is contagious." She vanished through the door.

"That's an all-right lady," Starsky said. "Your taste has definitely improved."

"Yeah, well, don't rub it in, okay? I'm still a little sensitive on the subject."

"No prob." Finishing his prowl around the room, Starsky dropped into the chair beside the sofa and turned his attention to his partner. Hutch looked tired, the heart-and-soul tired that Starsky remembered too well from the last couple years of their partnership, when soldiering on despite futility and frustration had taken all the energy he'd had to give. Starsky was dismayed. "Hey, man, you look like hell. You okay?"

Hutch dredged up a smile, the same shopworn one he could always find if he was pushed hard enough.

"Yeah. Just finding out that the racket hasn't changed any while I've been gone."

"Ain't it the truth. So ‒ what have you come up with?"

"A lot of the same things you did, I'll bet. Plus ‒ however different the victims seem, these weren't random killings, not just some college professor in a conveniently lonely place. For each of them, the murder site was the best place to hit that particular guy, given his normal hours and movements. They were studied before they died."

"Yeah, my kids picked up on that too."

Hutch cocked an eyebrow.

"Tweed jacket and a Chicano lady?"

"You got 'em. Harris 'n' Hidalgo."

"They know who I was ‒ am, I mean." It wasn't a question and it wasn't pleased, but Starsky grinned.

"Yeah, and they think you're an out-of-practice old fogey and I'm missing a few marbles. So what? How often did we credit Dobey with how much he really had on the ball? Ignore 'em. If it hits the fan, they'll be there, fast as we would've. Until then, though, they're young pups who think they know the world."

Hutch had no choice but to smile.

"Does sound familiar, doesn't it?" he said.

"Tall, wet, and cold," Denise announced, reappearing with three glasses of iced tea nested among her long fingers. Hutch extracted the middle one, freeing her to hand one of the others to Starsky. While Denise curled one leg beneath her and sat on the couch beside him, Hutch reached over to the end table and snagged coasters from the wooden rack.

"Couth, partner," he said, and tossed a coaster in Starsky's direction. "Spare the furniture, okay? It isn't ours."

"Hey! I'll have you know, I have learned some of the finer points of etiquette."

"What he means is, Cheryl finally got him housebroken," Hutch said confidentially aside to Denise.

"Oh, no ‒ don't start! Not with me sitting in the middle between the two of you!"

The partners exchanged suddenly innocent looks.

"Start?" Starsky asked.

"Start what?" Hutch added.

"Never mind!" She poked Hutch in the ribs with one admonitory finger. "You were talking murder when I came in; let's get back to it, okay?"

He captured her hand and brought it to his lips for a kiss before letting it go.

"Okay." He let his eyes rest on hers a moment longer, and smiled. More of the weariness had faded away when he looked across her at Starsky. "So, what theories have your hotshots got about why these three specific guys got iced?"

"I think the squad room favorite is that our killer thinks he's an alien assigned to collect brain tissue samples from experts in each different intellectual discipline. Close second is that he's a frustrated shrink ‒ beggin' your pardon, Neese ‒ tryin' to come up with organic reasons why German lit professors don't become dancers and dancers don't teach physics." He shrugged and held out his hands, palms up. "Truth to tell, buddy, we haven't got a clue."

Hutch sipped the tea, and then set the glass aside, letting out a long breath.

"Well, I have had one idea," he said slowly. "It's just about as crazy as those two, though, and I don't like it much."

"So? I didn't laugh at my kids, and I'm not gonna laugh at you. Spill it."

"Okay." He looked over at Denise. "You remember when we brought this up with the team, what everyone said about Garman and Willis and Fontenay? Something hit me there, but it took me a while to grab onto it."

"If you don't get to the point soon, I'll grab onto your throat," she threatened.

"That's not funny. The thing that got mentioned about all of them was that they were each all wrapped up in their disciplines. Willis got killed working late ‒ as usual ‒ in the German lit carrels of the research library. Fontenay, the gay dancer, didn't care about anything but the stage, to the degree that his personal behavior was so flagrant as to make it unlikely he'd ever be granted tenure anywhere. And Garman was such good friends with our own Raymond Wolfe because they each lived so inside their respective fields that they had nothing in common they cared about enough to disagree over. Even when we went over to the physics building, I don't think I heard anyone mention ever seeing Garman anywhere on campus except the physics building and the satellite labs ‒ and that made the walking path the only likely place to hit him."

"But that's typical," she protested. "Tunnel vision's an occupational hazard; we all suffer from it. We all tend to think the world revolves around what we do. We see everything in the colors and shapes our training taught us to expect, and we figure that other people see things the same way. It's why most of us professors can't carry on a simple conversation about our field with an ordinary person without snowing them in jargon. You just can't spend that much of your life dedicated to one topic without getting a little ‒ monomaniacal."

"I know, I know ‒ but think about it for a minute. We all _do_ take that for granted. And that's just it: because it always already goes without saying, it has to be true to an exceptional degree before one of us would make a point of it when describing another professor."

"You're reaching," Starsky said doubtfully, and Denise inclined her head.

"But it is something we could check out easily enough," she said thoughtfully. "And you're right; we don't usually bring it up, because to a certain degree it's such a common characteristic of the breed."

"Another thing," Starsky objected. "How do you get from a guy being a nut on his subject, to him being a murder victim with three neat holes in his head?"

"Yeah, well, it's at least as insane as being a space alien collecting samples, but ‒ what if our killer's on a mission," he hesitated, then plunged ahead, "‒ to open minds?"

For a long beat, they both just stared at him; then Denise shivered.

"That's obscene," she said. "Perverted and ugly and obscene."

"And I hope you're wrong," Starsky added. "Because if he's that nuts, we'll never be able to figure out who he's gonna go after next ‒ any of you single-minded types could be fair game."

"Unless we can give him a target just too compelling to resist."

The two men's eyes met. Starsky raised an eloquent eyebrow, and Hutch cocked his head and raised both of his. Denise's chin snapped up, a fox hearing hounds; she set her untouched glass of tea carefully on a coaster on the end table with over-controlled precision.

"You are _not_," she said, each word sharply distinct, "going to use yourself as bait. You hear me?"

Hutch glanced across her to Starsky, then turned his attention fully to her. Getting the message, Starsky looked away, giving them the illusion of privacy.

"It makes sense," Hutch said patiently. "Look ‒ the killer knows the campus. Given the way the system works, I don't think we could fool him now by putting in a cop as a teacher; he'd know right off he was dealing with a ringer. And Starsky's right: even if we could identify the most likely handful of targets on the staff, we couldn't cover them all well enough to keep them safe. One target is a lot easier to protect than four or six or a dozen, and since I really am a professor, I'm a good candidate."

"A good candidate for getting killed! Damn it, Ken, what are you trying to prove? That you're still a cop? _Listen_ to yourself: '_we_ couldn't fool him, _we_ couldn't cover them' ‒ you're not on the force any more!"

He captured her gesturing hands and drew them close, holding them tightly as if to persuade her just by the strength of his grip.

"I know that. More than you'll ever know, I know that. But I can't change what I am. And I can do this." Still holding her hands prisoner in his left, he reached out with his right to lift her chin with one finger, forcing her to meet his eyes.

"Neese, I'm not trying to prove anything, I swear. But if we can get this nut to come after me, we stand a good chance of nailing him. And if he does get to me, I've probably got a better shot at surviving long enough for help to arrive than just about anyone else he might pick."

"And what gives you that idea? Forgive me for being blunt, but you're fifty-three with a leg you can't stand on, and this guy's taken down an athlete in his prime without even a fight! Where do you get off thinking your life's charmed?"

"I don't." For a moment, all the bitter weariness flooded back into his face, and his eyes went bleak with memories. "But I've done it before. That makes a difference. I've fought for my life, I've killed to keep it, and I won't hesitate to do it again. And I'll be waiting for him. That makes the surprise factor about even." He pulled his mind back from the calculating coldness to see the war being waged behind her eyes, where her fear for him burned into anger, only to come up against the greater fear of saying the wrong thing, something hurting and unforgivable, and he smiled faintly.

"'To protect and to serve,' remember?" he whispered. "If I can do it, I have to. I _have_ to."

Tears spilled down her cheeks, but she didn't flinch from his gaze.

"If you die doing this, I'll kill you, you bastard," she promised fiercely.

He leaned forward and kissed her, tasting salt.

"That's my love."

She yanked one hand free of his grip, and angrily scrubbed the tears off her cheeks, shaking her head to blink the rest away. She sniffed hard and her voice was unsteady with bottled rage, but it was closer to its normal volume, and Starsky dared to look back in their direction.

"Besides, aren't you forgetting something, mister oh-so-smart ex-detective? Like, you're already known on campus as an open-minded man? All our psycho has to do is look at the course you're teaching."

"Yeah, well, I thought of that." He looked down, embarrassed, and then aside at Starsky; anywhere but at her face. He cleared his throat. "I could ‒ umm ‒ pull a more extreme version of our friend Wolfe. Make it clear that I didn't appreciate the way the course was running, that I resented the time being given to the rest of you, that the whole thing was a mistake, a waste of time."

The silence stretched for a very long moment.

"We have a hundred and seventeen students invested in this," Denise said levelly, very quietly. "We worked for almost a year to set it up. You're proposing to chuck it all for a chance to get killed."

"To save a life," he corrected. "Maybe more than one. And just maybe, soon enough to salvage the course ‒ if our killer makes his move on schedule next Tuesday night."

"And maybe not at all ‒ if you've read the killer wrong."

"There's that." He kept his voice steady and even.

She stared at him, then turned to Starsky.

"You agree with this?" she challenged, and he nodded.

"Makes as much sense as anything else we've come up with, and more than most." He smiled faintly. "'Course, I'd rather be the inside man, but I've never been any good at the egghead routine."

She didn't respond to the humor.

"And just how well can you cover him? You're staking out a goat for the tiger, _shikari_ ‒ and unless the hunter is very, very good, the goat usually winds up dead."

The two men shared a look full of history. Glancing from one to the other, she saw the same expression on both faces: speaking eyes and the ghosts of smiles.

"I'll be there," Starsky said. "I'll be there."

"Always," Hutch added.

Denise pulled in on herself, drawing her legs up and wrapping her arms around her knees. Over her head, Starsky looked a question at Hutch, but Hutch shook his head slightly and raised one hand in a 'stop' gesture. Both of them waited silently while she chased down her thoughts. When she looked up, her face was wintry with resolution.

"If you're going to play target, you'll need some isolation. And I won't ‒ _I_ can't ‒ abandon the course or the kids. I guess that means ‒ we're going to have a fight, aren't we?"

Hutch closed his eyes against pain, torn between pride and regret. By a narrow margin, pride won. He opened his eyes and smiled.

"You are one special lady. Have I told you lately that I love you? The more public, the better."

"It better be tomorrow, then. If you're going to divorce yourself from the course with public fireworks, tomorrow's your last chance before the curtain goes up on Tuesday." She seemed to be trying to memorize his face. "Where will you stay?"

"I'll crash in a dorm on campus. There's always room in the summer. And we can sneak in a cop or two next door pretty easily, what with part-time students coming and going on all the weekend retreats and seminars."

We'll guard him like Fort Knox," Starsky said.

"You can't, so don't promise it," she answered tiredly. "You'll have to keep your distance too, or scare your tiger off. I'm not stupid, guys. You have to give this guy enough rope to hang himself, and I know as well as you do that just might be enough to let him kill you. Don't make promises you can't keep, either of you."

"Okay," Hutch said softly. "But I promise to do my very best to stay alive."

"And I'll do my best to keep him that way."

She made an effort to smile.

"Starsky, someday I might forgive you for this, but right now ‒ get out. You're wasting time I can't afford to spare."

Hutch enfolded her in his arms, and looked over her head at Starsky.

"Go on, partner," he said, but he smiled slightly to take the sting away. "I'll see you tomorrow. And ‒ lock the door on your way out, okay?"

"Yeah." He pushed himself to his feet, but stood for a moment looking at them, curled on the couch like cats, and promised himself that he'd see them that way again. "You ‒ uh ‒ you two have a good night, huh?"

Hutch nodded and smiled, then jerked his head toward the door in unsubtle suggestion. Denise didn't move. Starsky hesitated one more instant, then nodded and left. He was very careful to pull the door quietly but solidly shut behind him.

Hutch held Denise close. Feeling her tremble, he gently rubbed her back to soothe her, and bent his head protectively over hers.

"Hey ‒ nothing might happen at all. When we start asking around in the morning, we may find out my theory's all wet."

"But you don't really think so," she said, her voice muffled against his chest. "That's where you've been all evening ‒ thinking this out." She raised her head to meet his eyes. "You had this masquerade in mind long before Starsky came."

"Guilty as charged." He hesitated. "Neese ‒ can you forgive me?"

She laughed humorlessly.

"For what? Your macho cop sense of priorities, that puts baiting a killer over your life or your work or the people who love you?" She shook her head. "You don't give me much choice, do you?" she whispered. "This is what you really are. The man I thought I knew ‒ the teacher and philosopher and musician I thought I loved ‒ he was just an act, wasn't he? A way for a sidelined cop to mark time without really being alive."

Hutch looked away, and for a long moment silence reigned. Then she put a hand to his cheek and turned his face back to her, and waited until he raised his eyes to meet hers.

"I'm glad to finally meet you, Ken Hutchinson," she said softly, when he finally looked up. "I hope that I have years and years to get to know you better, because I loved you even when you were just a ghost of yourself. Don't you dare die on me now, when I've only just learned who you really are and why I love you so much it hurts."

"Neese ‒" his throat closed and words failed, and he settled for pulling her close and holding her as tightly as he could. Her tears ran down his neck, and he squeezed his lids shut against the burning in his own eyes.

"I love you," he said finally, and it must have been the right thing, because she took some deep, shaking breaths and swallowed hard, and stopped crying after another minute.

"You damn well better," she said, struggling to grin, and he kissed her. Without saying another word, he shifted position to lie back on the couch, and drew her up to settle her more comfortably against his chest. She snuggled into place, and they stayed that way for a long time, until the timer on the patio lights plunged them into darkness.

* * *

"Excuse me, sir? Could I talk with you a minute, Mr. ‒ umm ‒ Professor ‒ Hutchinson, is it?"

Hutch bit back the urge to smile, and did his best 'vexed professor' imitation as he turned around at Starsky's call. The police were all over campus asking questions this morning; from the corner of his eye he could see Hidalgo going through much the same routine with Holly Sanderson. He was wryly amused that, for the first time he could remember, his cover allowed him open and obvious contact with his police backup.

"Look, I'm already running late. Can't this wait, Mr. ‒?" He paused suggestively.

"Starsky. _Detective Chief _Starsky. This won't take long; can I just ask you some questions while we walk, Professor?"

Hutch waved him on with ill grace, and they headed down the path, away from other ears. Starsky kept his notebook out and his pen poised, and their pace was slow enough to allow him to fake notes convincingly.

"Well, part of your theory checks out, anyway," he said without preamble. "All the dead men rank up near the top of the 'overly dedicated, single-minded professor' list. Won't surprise you to find that your Raymond Wolfe is way up there, too, along with a dozen math and science types."

"Yeah, but something's still missing. I mean, out of all of them ‒"

"‒ why those three first?" Starsky finished. " I know. It's got me too. We still could be readin' this wrong."

"Wouldn't be the first time someone used a series of 'random' psycho killings to hide one real murder."

"Teach your own grandma to suck eggs! We thought of that already. If there was a real motive for killin' any of those three, we haven't found it yet, and you better believe we looked. No jealous lovers, no big scores, no funny insurance, no real enemies, nothin' outa the ordinary ‒ 'cept for one of 'em bein' gay as a daisy in May, and for him, that was normal."

The two of them walked a few steps in silence. Starsky stole a sideways glance at his pensive partner.

"You don't hafta do this, ya know," he said.

"I want to," Hutch insisted. "But I want to do it right."

"Screwin' up the class ‒ that's gonna make problems between you and Neese, isn't it?"

Hutch nodded slowly.

"It makes problems even just for me. I mean, I'm a teacher, I owe these kids the best I can do. But if I can help stop a killer ‒ isn't that worth a little deception?"

"I can't answer that one, pal ‒ it's your judgment call." Starsky waited a beat, then finished the thought. "But Neese doesn't call it that way, does she?"

"I don't know. I don't think we're even looking at the same equation. Screwing the class is in one side of the balance for both of us, but I can only guess what all's on the other side for her. I can't figure out where the balance comes down, either. Last night, this morning ‒ she wouldn't say. She just left it up to me to decide." He stopped walking and met Starsky's eyes. "I don't want to lose her, Starsk ‒ but I _have_ to do this. I just can't choose not to, not if I want to be able to look at myself in a mirror."

"Hey," Starsky said softly. "You got nothin' ta prove ta me."

"Maybe not ‒ but I must have something to prove to myself. Damned if I can figure it out, though."

"So, how do you want to play it? You're calling the shots, here."

Hutch paused, then took a breath.

"We go with it. I'm supposed to be interviewed by the campus newspaper today ‒ about ten minutes from now, as a matter of fact, I really am running late. They'll get a bit of a different story than they expected."

"You just ‒ don't make it _too_ good, okay? I mean, don't get the guy so hot he decides to move up his timetable. We don't have all of your cover in place yet."

"Got any other advice, grandma? I'll be careful, I promise."

"Just watch out for a six to six-four guy with a light brown ponytail who could break you in two. That's our best take on the perp so far."

"Not exactly unique, huh? Heck ‒ that could even fit Tony, one of the other profs in the course. I'll keep my eyes open. In the meantime ‒ do me a favor?"

"You gotta ask?"

"Stick close to Neese, okay? Don't let her be alone."

"Close as she'll let me," he promised.

The past moved into the present again, and Hutch smiled faintly.

"Be seeing you, partner."

Starsky smiled back.

"Bet on it." He stood on the path and watched as Hutch headed away. Despite his limp, there was no hesitation in his stride, and nothing but confidence in the line of his back and the set of his head.

"Bet on it."

* * *

Starsky stuck his head around the open office door and raised both eyebrows.

"Got a minute for your friendly local policeman, Doctor Bay?"

Denise looked up from the computer on the desk and smiled very slightly.

"We're alone, Dave. Come on in."

He prudently closed the door behind him as he entered.

"I wasn't sure we'd be on speaking terms," he said. She laughed, humor tinged with gentle irony.

"You're his partner, not his fault." She looked at him, searching his face for answers. "You know, for all that we've been together for a year, I've only started to know him in the last week ‒ and most of that in the past two days, from the moment he saw you. Up until that time, I think he'd almost forgotten himself. But he never forgot you."

"He was my partner, my best friend. When we couldn't trust anyone else, we could trust each other. He never let me down, never."

"Not even when he left?"

Instead of answering immediately, Starsky took a moment to consider, draping himself into a chair. Then he shook his head,

"No. Not even when he left. I let him down, then; I couldn't make him see that it was all right, that he hadn't changed. I shouldn't have let him go."

"No! Don't you start doing that too ‒ rewriting the past with 'could haves' or 'should have beens.' God ‒ the two of you really are a pair. Emotional bookends."

Starsky nearly barked laughter.

"That's the first time I've been called a 'book'-anything." He sobered quickly, watching her. "He doesn't want to hurt you," he said softly, awkwardly.

"I know that." She paused, searching for words as carefully as he had. "I'm not angry, Dave; not with you, and not with him. I just ‒ don't want to lose him, that's all."

"He just said the same thing about you."

The two of them looked at each other; then, at the same moment, they both smiled. The tension in the air evaporated like rain in the desert, leaving a sweetness behind.

"What was he like, back when?"

"I don't think he's really changed. He was a good cop. Thought too much, maybe ‒ cared too much, for sure ‒ and a soft touch for any hard luck story, but still the best cop I ever knew. And the best friend I ever had." He pulled his gaze back from the unfathomable past to meet her eyes. "I missed him," he finished with quietly devastating simplicity.

She slipped out from behind the desk and went to one knee next to his chair, taking both of his hands in hers.

"He missed you, too. Even when I first met him, something was missing. I never knew what it was, until last week when he told me about you, and being a cop." She squeezed his hands. "I can't really know what it's like for you ‒ being partners, I mean, and sharing all you did ‒ but I can imagine it, and I've seen what it's meant to you both. And I'm glad I've had the chance to see it come alive again. I may be more jealous of you than I can say ‒ you've had more of him than I'll ever know ‒ but I know damned well I can't love him without loving you too, at least a little. Think you can live with that?"

He bent over and kissed her cheek.

"I told him you were special. I just didn't guess how much."

She sat back on her heels, and the mood shifted again, this time to matter-of-fact business.

"So ‒ what's the game plan?"

"He's playing the first card just about now, giving the campus newspaper a different story than they expected. That should help get the word out."

"And tonight he'll disrupt the class."

"You've got it." He saw the expressions that chased across her face, and shook her hands to capture her attention. "Look, the whole idea of screwing up the class, that's bothering him a lot ‒ but there's no other way for him to bait the trap. Everything he said last night was right."

"If you're right about the killer."

"Yeah." He was silent for a moment, then shrugged. "There's only one way to find out."

"Yeah. The only problem is ‒ I don't know whether to hope that you're right, or that you're wrong. If you're wrong, it's all for nothing, but if you're right ‒"

"Hey. He'll be fine. I promise."

"Stay close to him, okay?"

"What is this? Did you two practice your lines together, or what? I'll be on him like pastrami on rye, okay? Sheesh, you two sure know how to pester a guy."

She laughed, and rocked forward to plant a kiss on his cheek.

"No rest for the wicked, my mother always said. And I'll just bet you know that's true."

"Hah. Shows how much _you_ know. I'm the partner of the White Knight; we're the good guys, not the wicked ones." He hauled her to her feet as he stood up.

"Well, in that case, watch out for windmills, Don Quixote."

He tried for a courtly bow to cover his exit, and nearly tripped over his own feet. But the sound of her light and genuine laughter floating after him down the corridor was more than worth the embarrassment.

* * *

"Professor Hutchinson?" The pert and pretty young woman standing in the doorway was not quite what Hutch had expected. "I'm Melody Cahill, from the _Clarion_."

"When they said Mel Cahill, I thought ‒ never mind. Come in, come in." For one instant, under her alert feminine scrutiny, he was acutely aware of the slight awkwardness he betrayed in using one corner of the desk to help himself rise. Her eyes tracked unerringly to his right leg, even though there was nothing obvious there to see, and then came up to his face as they shook hands.

"Happens all the time; don't worry about it," she said with a smile. "I brought Rusty Jenkins along; he'll get a few pictures while we talk, if you don't mind."

"Not at all," he said, and looked past her and up to meet mild brown eyes in a tanned face under light reddish-brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. The alarm bells in his brain suddenly clamored so loudly that he almost lost track of the conversation. Jenkins was an inch or two taller than he was, and the tanned arms protruding from his short-sleeved shirt belonged to a weightlifter. He handled his two cameras, one slung around his neck and the other on a thong looped around one wrist, with incongruous delicacy and the ease of long familiarity. Hutch held out his hand, pleased to find both it and his voice steady. "Good to meet you both." Jenkins' grip was powerful but restrained, and he nodded and smiled.

"Just ignore Rusty," Cahill said brightly. "I know photographers make some people uncomfortable, but it's okay; we don't want you to pose, or anything. Just relax and talk to me, and pretend he isn't even there. We just want you to be natural. I promise, the photos we'll use will look great." She looked around the office, and her eyes alighted on the sofa and chair in front of the bookshelves. "Why don't we just sit down there?"

"Whatever you say." He picked up the cane and limped toward the sofa as she settled into the chair. He couldn't help flinching when he heard the camera shutter clicking in time with his broken stride, and his knuckles were white on the grip as he lowered himself to the cushions, but he made himself look up and smile pleasantly at her as he made himself comfortable. "I gather you've done this a lot."

"Yes, well, Godwin Babatunde ‒ he's our editor ‒ thought that faculty interviews would be a good regular feature for the paper. Let students get to know professors as people, that sort of thing. We've been doing this series for over a year, now. You make ‒ let's see ‒ number fifty-eight."

"And have you and Rusty done all of them?"

"Oh, no. I've only done about a third." She was rooting around in her purse as she spoke, not really paying attention to him. "We all rotate assignments. I've done this many only because, well, I like it." With a satisfied look, she pulled a small tape recorder out of the purse and reached to set it on the coffee table, glancing up at him as she thumbed the button. "You don't mind, do you? I just like to be certain I get my quotes right."

"I appreciate accuracy. Although that," he nodded at the recorder, "doesn't guarantee that even direct quotes won't be taken out of context."

She grinned.

"Thank you; I just won my bet. I told Godwin you'd try to turn the tables on your interviewer."

"Oh? And what gave you that idea?"

"Your background, of course." Her smile showed teeth, and the shift in her posture as she leaned ever so slightly forward gave him a millisecond's warning that 'pert and pretty' had changed gears into 'predatory.' "Tell me, professor ‒ why does an ex-cop become a sociologist?"

Oddly, the first thought to pop into his mind was, _damn Mike Wallace_. Jenkins was too far to his right for him to risk an attempt at a casual glance; all he could do was roll with it. He could hear the camera shutter clicking.

"It makes perfect sense, actually," he said smoothly, without hesitation. "What else does a cop deal with, but the results of clashes between the values and beliefs of the different groups in his community? Sociology is the essence of a cop's job." He smiled, projecting as relaxed and easy an image as he could manage. He was rewarded by seeing a trace of deflation in her poorly leashed zeal as he failed to rise to her bait.

"A lot of people would take issue with that statement," she tried, and he shook his head.

"And a lot of people would be wrong. Most good cops are sociologists, whether they realize it or not ‒ and irrespective of whether anyone else realizes it, either. The nature of the job only lets them deal with the symptoms, but do you really think they don't know and understand the root causes of those symptoms, the social, cultural and economic factors that lead to drug abuse, assault, robbery, murder? Oh, they understand, all right; they understand on a gut level, with a lot more immediacy than any academic in his ivory tower." He almost surprised himself with the passion that crept into his voice. _May as well be damned for a wolf as for a lamb_, he thought, as he saw the pattern that his apparent professional obsession could follow.

"That's not the view that most people have of cops," she said, and he sat back.

"Most people? Who are 'most people' ‒ you? Your fellow students? Your parents? Your next door neighbors here, or in whatever place you call home? People from the inner city? Have you done a statistically significant survey to determine what your 'most people' think about cops? And think about them _when_ ‒ just after they've gotten a speeding ticket, or just after they've been rescued from a hostage situation?" He smiled again, genuinely beginning to enjoy himself despite his constant peripheral awareness of Jenkins circling around and changing angles on his pictures. "It's never quite as simple as Mike Wallace makes it look, Ms. Cahill."

She wasn't ready to give up quite yet.

"Your own career as a cop was ‒ how should I put it ‒ colorful? Somewhat checkered, anyway. Do you know how many complaints were lodged against you?"

"I lost count when they went over fifty. Did you read the investigation reports on all of them?"

"I don't see what Internal Affairs whitewashing has to do with my question."

"So you didn't. You disappoint me, Ms. Cahill. Did you read _any_ of them?" She watched him in thin-lipped silence, and he nodded. "IA would've loved to nail my hide to their wall; they hated like hell to have to admit that their investigations proved I was clean, and that drips off of every page they wrote. Did you even bother to look at the service commendations, or did you just stop where you wanted to?"

"The first rule of a good reporter ‒ and a good interviewer ‒ is to know your subject," she shot back. "I do my homework."

"But use it selectively. Bias is a bad thing in any news medium, Ms. Cahill. And not only for your readers, but for you. Let's see ‒ you got a copy of my CV from someone in the faculty office, you pounced on the police background, and you decided to embarrass me with it. Unfortunately for you, you forgot to make sure that I _would_ be embarrassed. Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not. I was a good cop. And that was all very long ago; I've been a teacher now longer than I was a cop. But it was really all one long career, just running from applied sociology to theory instead of the other way around. Now, do you want to keep embarrassing yourself, or would you rather get around to the _real_ heart of this interview?"

Jenkins moved into clear view as Hutch watched Cahill decide to cut her losses. The photographer seemed oblivious to the conversation, wholly absorbed in his own issues of light and focus, but Hutch felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck, and pulled his attention back to the fledgling reporter.

"I think ‒ I owe you an apology, Professor Hutchinson. You're right; I made assumptions, instead of checking all my facts first. I'm sorry."

He smiled and raised an eyebrow.

"Sorry for the wrong reasons, maybe, but definitely wiser." He kept his voice light and gently teasing, and won a sheepish smile from Cahill.

"I won't make that mistake again," she admitted, but then raised her head with a spark of her earlier defiant approach. "But next time I'll have the goods to nail your hide to _my_ wall!"

"You're welcome to try. Just remember that it never works on someone who _knows_ he's in the right."

"Like you?"

"Like me."

She studied his easy calm for a long moment, and then laughed outright.

"Maybe we should just start over? Professor Hutchinson, you're involved in a very unusual multidisciplinary course being offered this summer for the very first time. You're one of eight professors, all from different fields, team-teaching a class in policy and decisionmaking. What can you tell us about it?"

He took a breath and smiled, and for one intense second desperately wished himself anywhere else on earth.

"It's innovative, unique, open, free-wheeling ‒ and wrong," he said.

He could almost see her prick up her ears as she blinked.

"I'm sorry, Professor ‒ did you say 'wrong?' What do you mean by that?"

"Oh, the idea is good enough, in concept ‒ examine all the different factors that go into making a policy decision ‒ but the approach that the course is taking is fundamentally flawed. In trying to give equal weight and equal time to each factor, each discipline, it loses its focus on the truly central issues, the group values and dynamics that really drive the choices we, as a society, make. That lack of focus vitiates the benefits I thought the course would convey. I believe it will leave students with a dangerously superficial image of the overall process, together with a uselessly skewed sense of the relative values and weights to be given to the various disciplines affecting a decision." He didn't dare break his concentration on the reporter to try assessing how the photographer was reacting; he kept his eyes on Cahill, and noted Jenkins only through the occasional whirr and click of a camera.

"That's ‒ pretty strong language, Professor. And, frankly, not at all what I expected to hear. Weren't you largely responsible for the design of the course, along with Doctor Bay and Professor Sanderson?"

He spread his hands and cocked his head.

"You aren't the only one who can admit to being wrong, Ms. Cahill. I thought things would turn out differently. Now that I see the teaching dynamics firsthand, I'm sorry to say, I can tell that it's a mistake. Purely sociological models would do a much better job of conveying the concepts the course is intended to cover."

"And how do your fellow professors feel about this ‒ opinion?"

"I'm sure I don't know. I haven't asked them. I believe that Professor Wolfe might agree with me in principle, if not on particulars, but I don't really know any of the instructors well enough to judge, except for Doctor Bay." He smiled fleetingly. "She, I know, will _not_ agree."

"Doesn't that complicate things?"

"What? And complicate which?"

"Come now, Professor, don't be coy. You and Doctor Bay are a pair outside the classroom as well as in; that's been no secret. Doesn't this view you're taking of the course complicate your personal relationship with her?"

"My personal relationships are no one's business but my own." The sudden, clipped frost in his voice was definitely, surprisingly real. The surge of emotion forced him to grip the head of the cane between both of his hands to keep them from trembling. "What goes on between Doctor Bay and myself is not open to discussion."

Cahill raised a hand in placating surrender, but he saw the gleam of satisfaction in her eyes. He didn't even have to guess where she would head next, the moment she left his office.

"No offense meant, Professor. But we would like to give our readers some sense of who you are outside the classroom."

He shrugged.

"You obviously have my CV ‒ that gives you my background pretty well. There's not much more to say."

"But what about your personal interests? Do you have any hobbies, any activities you particularly enjoy?"

"Come to my classes," he said with a smile. "You'll see what I enjoy, right there. Outside ‒" He shrugged again. "Reading. Tracking the news and watching the trends. That's about it. I'm afraid I don't make a very exciting story."

"You're kidding, right? I don't know many professors with backgrounds like yours! I can't believe you've become totally tame, not after what I read about your police career."

"Well ‒ maybe I grew up. Or maybe the wildness just comes out in different ways; my challenges are purely intellectual, these days. It's a different world from the one I used to know."

"Do you regret it ‒ giving up the action?"

"What's to regret? Oh, sure ‒ I wish I'd never taken this" ‒ he slapped his bad leg ‒ "but that's for its own sake, just to be able to walk and run again like anybody else. But aside from that, no ‒ I wouldn't change what I'm doing with my life. I'm doing what I want to do. And if it's not what you'd expect, tough."

"Are you planning to look up any old friends while you're here?"

"One or two, maybe. But it won't be any big cop reunion; I cut those ties when I left, years ago. I just don't have much in common with that world any more." He snorted. "Most of the guys I knew are probably retired, or close to it, anyway, and my classroom war stories couldn't compare with their street ones." He nodded toward the shelves of books. "This is my world now."

"Would you have any interest in returning to the LA area permanently, say, if the university offered you a full-time position here? Or are you committed to going back home to Portland when the summer session ends?"

The idea struck him like a fist, and after the first momentary shock he wondered why it hadn't even occurred to him before. He realized with dull surprise that he hadn't even thought of Portland once, not since he'd seen Starsky two nights before, and that both "home" and "leaving" had taken on entirely different meanings.

"I ‒ don't know," he said slowly, considering. "I don't think I really have ties to _places_; my links are more to concepts, and to a very few close friends. Those would shape my decision more than just LA versus Portland." He put the thoughts away to examine later, and turned up one palm in dismissal. "Besides, I have no reason to expect that the university here has any intention of trying to get me to stay. I haven't even been here a week, yet."

"But your reputation precedes you. Professor, thank you for your time." Cahill bent forward and retrieved the little tape recorder, thumbing the power off. She glanced across at Jenkins. "Did you get all the pics you want, Rusty?"

He patted the camera around his neck.

"I got what I need."

"Then we'll get out of your hair." She stood up, slipping the tape recorder back into her purse. Hutch used the cane and the arm of the sofa to regain his own feet.

"When will you print your story?"

"I don't really know ‒ that's up to Godwin." She looked him up and down, but the appraisal in her eyes had nothing to do with his appearance. "We usually run only one interview a week, and do the interviews a week or two ahead of time to have some selection ability, but he just might want to run an omnibus set covering all of the professors in the policy course, getting all their viewpoints in one place. Two stories at one time, you might say ‒ the interviews, and the course itself." She held out her hand. "Professor Hutchinson, it's been a pleasure."

He smiled as he shook her hand.

"I'll withhold judgment until I see the story, if you don't mind." He offered his hand to Jenkins. "And the pictures, of course."

Jenkins' return grip was unhesitating and gave nothing away.

"They'll be good," he said. "I'm the best at what I do."

"I don't doubt it," Hutch answered, and watched them go. He limped quickly to the door after it closed behind them and paused, listening; then he cracked the door open and risked a look to confirm that they were gone. Letting the door snick closed, he leaned his forehead against it for a long moment and took a deep breath, releasing the tension with a shudder as he exhaled. His hand was shaking as he set the lock. Then he pushed himself away from the door, gripping the cane tightly as he headed back to the desk but just letting it fall as he dropped into the chair. He pulled the telephone toward him with one hand while he flipped open his scheduling notebook with the other, running a finger down the page until he came to Denise's name and the phone number in her borrowed office. He punched the digits in and waited; when he heard her voice, he closed his eyes in unexpected relief.

"Doctor Bay. Can I help you?"

"I think you're about to have company," he said without preamble, "and I think one of them's our killer."

"God ‒ are you all right?"

The concern in her voice washed out the worry that had been nagging him, the fear that she would reject him along with what he was trying to do, and he smiled into the phone.

"Fine. Adrenaline overload, that's all. Look, the kids from the newspaper just left here, and I'm guessing they'll make a beeline for you. The girl's gunning for a spot on the campus '60 Minutes' ‒ she'll want to get your shocked reaction to what I've said, and see if she can't push for some juicy details on our relationship. She did some of her homework on my background, so it already came out that I was a cop, you don't have to worry about letting that slip. But the guy with her ‒ the photographer ‒ matches the partial description of the killer. I'm sure he won't do anything right now, but I'll want your opinion on him."

"Of course. Anything else I should know first?"

"Nah. I did the hard-line sociologist bit ‒ wrapped in the cop stuff as just a different phase of the same thing ‒ claimed no hobbies but reading and tracking the news. Told them to buzz off my personal life with you, said I didn't have any more cop contacts. That about wraps it. I have to call Starsk and see what he can dig up on Jenkins. I'm betting that all three of the murder victims were interviewed by the paper and that he took their pictures. Look ‒ be careful, okay?"

"Goes double for you. Hutch ‒ I love you."

"I love you, too. Now hang up before they walk in on you ‒ and call me the minute they leave."

"Promise. And Hutch ‒ no, never mind. Just take care of yourself." The gentle click sounded before he could add anything, and he spent a moment listening to the hiss of the empty line before he depressed the switchhook and dialed the police.

* * *

Feeling foolish with paranoia, Hutch checked the rear view mirror for the hundredth time as he pulled into a spot just down the block from the Prince Nairobi. So far as he could tell, he hadn't been followed, but he still kept up his scan and his guard as he walked to the restaurant and through the door. He was so tightly wound that he stiffened and started to step away when he felt arms encircle him, before he realized that they belonged to Denise. He forced himself to relax as he returned her embrace.

"Hutch!"

"Hey ‒ watch out for the ribs. I need to breathe, you know." He smoothed her hair, more pleased than annoyed by her reaction, and she fractionally eased her grip. "I'm glad to see you too."

"It's not even a whole day yet, and I already hate having to keep away from you," she confessed. He tipped up her chin with one finger and gave her a long kiss.

"Me, too," he said, when they came up for air.

"If you've finished resuscitating each other, Starsky's waiting in the back room," Huggy observed, and grinned when they both jumped.

"Huggy ‒" Hutch's voice held a dangerous undertone of exasperation. "You don't _do_ that to a man who's waiting for psycho killers to jump out of the bushes."

"_Campus_ bushes," Huggy corrected. "Right now, you so far off campus that killer'd hafta have twenty-mile-long arms. Come on."

Hutch and Denise each kept an arm about the other's waist as they followed Huggy down one side of the restaurant and through a door into a room obviously used for banquets and other group functions. Lunch hour being mostly over, the restaurant was nearly empty, and the wait staff were setting the tables in anticipation of dinner. The banquet room was deserted except for Starsky, Harris, and Hidalgo, gathered around the first table.

"The rest of your party has arrived," Huggy announced. "I suppose it's too much to expect that you might actually pay for lunch?"

"Thanks, Hug, but planning comes first," Starsky said. He was acutely aware of Harris and Hidalgo taking in the scene with avid eyes, their curiosity about Hutch obvious in their attention.

"What I thought," Huggy muttered. "Well, when you decide you have need of me, oh noble white chief, just rub the right bottle and your genie will appear." He bowed ironically and swept back out the door.

When he left, the split became evident; one group of cops eyeing one group of academics, who eyed the cops right back. Starsky finally cleared his throat.

"Detective Consuela Hidalgo, Detective John Harris ‒ meet Doctor Denise Bay and my partner, Professor Ken Hutchinson. Make things easy ‒ Connie, John, Neese, and Hutch."

Wary nods and handshakes passed all around.

"Good call on Jenkins," Harris allowed, as he shook hands with Hutch.

"Thanks. Having the description from you guys didn't hurt."

They all settled into chairs around the table.

"Do you think he made you?" Hidalgo asked. Hutch shrugged.

"Impossible to tell. I hadn't figured on Mel Cahill, girl reporter, going the extra mile to rake up my police career. He sure as hell knows I _was_ a cop; question is, whether he believes I still am, or whether it even matters at all, the way he thinks. You got any sense?" Hutch cocked an eyebrow at Denise, but she shook her head.

"If he said more than ten words in my office, I'd be amazed. It's hard to get much of a read off somebody who won't even talk to you. Let's see ‒ he's clearly introverted. His body language is both very relaxed and very controlled, all at the same time; I'd guess he's done a lot in one of the gentler martial arts, ta'i chi, maybe, or kung fu. Not karate, I don't think ‒ different feel, something less abrupt, not linear. He's very confident and secure in himself; doesn't feel any need to either control or please others. He'd be a real killer at the poker table: I never saw any reaction on his face. It's like his expression was set in neutral and he never changed gears. I'd guess that he doesn't ever talk much and keeps pretty much to himself. It's a fair bet he's an obsessive personality, someone who locks focus on things and won't be sidetracked. On that score, I'd lay money he's got his own photo lab somewhere and does all of his own developing and printing. I think he's also running a pretty powerful intellect behind all that silence; I got the definite feeling he understood everything I said, and I deliberately went off into some pretty esoteric corners during my little interview. He's heard the psych vocabulary before, maybe from the inside."

As she spoke, Harris and Hidalgo traded looks that started with amused forbearance, shaded into surprise, and ended with respect. Over their heads, Hutch met Starsky's eyes, and both of them grinned.

"So ‒ how did she score?" Hutch asked.

"Ten for ten," Harris admitted. He consulted a file folder on the table in front of him. "Solomon Bartholomew Jenkins, aka Rusty, is a multiple degree black belt ‒ or whatever the equivalent term is ‒ in kung fu. He also does ta'i chi every morning ‒ actually leads a group on campus, out behind Bolton Hall. Didn't organize it, or anything; it just grew up when people saw him out there all the time and started following along. He never talks to them, by the way; his social life is pretty much confined to academic stuff and his current hobbies. He's third year pre-med, majoring in biochemistry with minors in psych and biology. Dean's List and then some; probably close to a genius I.Q. Has a passion for photography, and pretty much monopolizes the campus newspaper's darkroom."

"And that's not all," Hidalgo chimed in. "Some of his classmates say that he goes on binges with different interests, kind of like an obsession of the month club; he'll pursue something to incredible ends until he figures he's exhausted it, and then drop it. At various times, he's gone overboard on chess, Celtic harp music, fantasy gaming, more authors than I can name, paintings by the Dutch Masters, _Star Trek_, the history of the French Revolution, you name it. Near as I can tell, he's been into just about everything. Guess he figures there's nothing he can't do."

"A serial Renaissance man," Denise quipped.

"He seemed ‒ older than I'd have guessed, for just third year," Hutch fretted.

"Ah, but that's where the story gets in-ter-esting," Starsky said. "Our Rusty is twenty-five ‒ you weren't imaging things. He took a three-year rest after his first year, little matter of an emotional breakdown. Seems he flipped out when his roommate said somethin' to him just after finals. Nobody seems to know what the kid said, but Jenkins broke a lot of his bones before campus security managed to get him down. Rusty's family paid out handsomely up front to hush things up, and shipped Rusty off north to this place called Quiet Glen. No comparison with Cabrillo State, man; as nuthouses go, the Glen's a resort, or maybe a cruise ship. The martial arts stuff was part of his therapy, if you can believe that. He was pronounced well and released last year."

"So, if he is our killer, what set him off now?" Denise asked. They all exchanged blank looks, and she sighed. "I knew it couldn't be this easy."

"What I want to know is, why didn't you pick up the newspaper connection?"

Hutch's question brought out snorts and somewhat sheepish looks from the three cops.

"Simple," Starsky said. "They never published the interview with Fontenay, so we didn't see a pattern. Turns out they interviewed him two weeks before he died, but then they had a chance to print a chat with the Secretary of State instead. Then the next week, they published the one with Garman, 'cause the interview tied in nice with him winning some physics award. They'd scheduled Fontenay for the following week, but he got murdered, and since the interview was kind of ‒ well, you know ‒ they decided to do the decent thing and not run it at all. The Willis interview appeared almost two full months before his murder, so the connection wasn't apparent. Hey, fifty-some other professors got interviewed and none of them got offed, so ‒ we missed it."

"I'll forgive you this time," Hutch said. "How many interviews was Jenkins in on? Any of the other top candidates on our list have their life stories taken yet?"

"Only one ‒ Raymond Wolfe, your historian," Harris answered. "He got interviewed last week, and yeah ‒ Jenkins shot the pics. He's done about half the interviews, starting eight months ago."

Hutch sat back, dejected. "Damn."

"Yeah. You're not the only target out there." Starsky paused, then cut the air dismissively with one hand. "We got no choice; we gotta split our coverage. Wolfe may even be more likely, since Jenkins has had longer to scope out his schedule and pick a spot for the hit."

They all sat in glum silence, until Hutch finally stirred.

"Damn. We may have more problems, too. That Cahill girl did her homework on me, maybe well enough to recognize you as my old partner. If she shared that stuff with Jenkins, he'll know your face, and he'll have good reason to get suspicious if he sees you around campus anywhere near me; I made it clear I'd given up my old cop ties. Hell, just knowing I was a cop probably put him on alert. And if he finds we've been sniffing around the paper and his past ..."

"He won't," Hidalgo said, too quickly. "Hey, we didn't want to tip our hand; we didn't show a badge anywhere near the paper or his classmates. We pulled in some of the kids from Vice to make like students and mingle. I mean, undercover vice can learn more by not asking questions than anyone else I know. Those of us already known as cops stuck with the professors, and left the real digging to the moles."

Hutch raised an eyebrow.

"Good strategy. Nice twisty mind you've got there, _chica_." Hidalgo grinned.

"Thanks. You're not half bad yourself ‒ for a gimpy old retired guy."

Hutch looked plaintively at Starsky.

"What are you teaching these kids, partner? They got no respect for their betters."

"Yeah, well, we didn't either, when we were their age," Starsky pointed out, and grinned himself. The teasing proved better than anything else that his officers had accepted Hutch as one of them, and that left a warm feeling behind.

"Not to interrupt a bonding moment or anything, but where do we go from here?" Denise asked. Starsky blew out an exasperated breath.

"Well, we ain't got enough to make a case ‒ all we got is circumstantial as hell ‒ so we just keep on keepin' on. I assume you wanna go ahead?" Hutch nodded, and Starsky shrugged. "Okay. We already got a team shadowing Wolfe; put 'em out soon's we made the connection. Harris, Hidalgo, you're on Jenkins. Play it careful, keep your distance; don't let him make you. At this point, I'd rather you lose him than tip him off, 'cause even if we picked him up, we couldn't hold him, and all we'd do is blow our chance to nail him cold. I'll be on blondie, here." He quelled Hutch's attempt at an objection by the simple expedient of talking louder. "So what if he knows I'm your ex; wouldn't he kinda expect I might turn up to keep an eye on my old bud when PhD's are gettin' iced? He's gotta know I can't hold your hand every minute. Besides, if he's busy watchin' you an' me, he may not notice Frank Hardy and Nancy Drew, here."

"Hey, chief ‒ since when is Nancy Drew _chicana_?" Hidalgo demanded.

"Since she changed her name to Hidalgo. Any other dumb questions?"

"Never knew you were in a book, _hija_," Harris grinned.

"Yeah, well, look at what he saddled _you_ with, and tell me you're happy, little boy detective," she growled, and chuckled nastily when she saw his expression change.

"Sit. Stay." Starsky waited a fractional beat until they shut up, and then glanced around. "Anything else?"

Denise suddenly shifted, looking down and away from the rest, and Hutch caught her hand.

"Out with it," he said quietly. "You've got something."

She met his eyes with obvious reluctance, and then flicked a glance at the others.

"Just ‒ we still don't really know _why_ Jenkins is doing this. Theories are all well and good, but we haven't even gotten to a hypothesis we can test, yet; we're just ‒ throwing chemicals at a fire and seeing if they'll burn. What set him off, and did it now? Why Tuesday nights? And if he does figure that Hutch is bait ‒ how will he react? Ignore the bait? Take it, just to prove he can? Or go in some entirely unexpected direction deliberately to confound the lot of us? He may be crazy, but he is most definitely not stupid."

"Got no answers, lady," Hutch said gently. "All we can do is give it our best shot."

"I'll get the state cops to ask some questions for us up at Quiet Glen, see if we can coax anything from his doctors," Starsky offered. "Maybe you could talk to them, if they're less than cooperative for us ‒ professional courtesy, and all that."

She smiled wanly.

"Yeah ‒ maybe so."

"Okay. Get on it, kids."

"We hear and obey, oh mighty one," Hidalgo said, and Harris tossed an ironic salute that somehow included Hutch and Denise as well as Starsky as the two of them left.

"Showtime," Hutch murmured, gazing after them, and Denise put a hand on his arm.

"Not until after lunch, okay? We won't have many opportunities to be together until this whole thing is over ‒ let's not waste any of them."

He took her hand, met her eyes, and smiled warmly.

"After lunch," he agreed.

Starsky cleared his throat.

"I ‒ think I'll be gettin' back. Clean some stuff off my desk before I start the stakeout thing." He started to get up, but Hutch's left hand shot out to grab his wrist.

"Sit."

"Stay," Denise added, and a tiny smile teased at her lips. "You can keep us from getting mushy."

He looked from one of them to the other, and got the same message from both.

"Well, if you put it that way ‒ who's buyin'?"

_End of Act Three_


	4. Act Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _This is not intended to infringe upon any trademark rights or copyrights held by Spelling/Goldberg Productions, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures Television, the American Broadcasting Company, Sony Television, or others in connection with the names and likenesses of characters depicted in the 1975-1979 television series _ _ **Starsky &amp; Hutch** _

**Starsky &amp; Hutch: Together Again**

_ **Opened Minds** _

Copyright 1995, Bardicvoice

**Act Four**

The students pouring out of the lecture hall into the night filled the air with a cacophony of animated debate. Screened from view in the dark by bushes and trees, Hutch sighed heavily and leaned back against the brick wall of the building. He didn't startle or even open his eyes when Starsky's voice sounded almost at his shoulder.

"Hell of a show you put on in there."

"Yeah."

"If it's any consolation, it didn't go to waste. Jenkins and Cahill were both in the back; between her tape recorder and his cameras, they had a ball. They were workin' the crowd for reaction interviews soon as the class got dismissed."

"Wonderful." His tone was as sour as his mouth tasted. "Damn. I never expected Wolfe to even show up for tonight, much less chime in and agree with me. Cahill must've called him and primed the pump."

"Complicates things some more," Starsky agreed. "You both make real juicy targets." He looked narrowly at his partner. Even in the meager lighting, Hutch's face seemed tired and worn. "You gonna be okay?"

"Eventually. I guess. It's just ‒ God, I hated doing that."

Starsky put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"Hey. It'll come out right. Wanna go home?"

"Just wish I could."

Starsky gave his shoulder another squeeze, then lifted his portable radio and thumbed the switch.

"Papa Bear to Nuthouse, come in Nuthouse," he said breezily. Hutch grimaced.

"Nuthouse here, Papa Bear." Harris' voice was soft. "Stupid names and all."

"What's your situation?"

"Mr. Peanut's still working the crowd with Cashew. Looks like they'll be a while. Alpha Male left with the Wolfpack on his heels, heading home, I think."

"Good enough. I'm leaving now with Goldilocks. We'll settle into the Hotel Majestic for tonight, and set up the dorm stuff first thing tomorrow. Keep me advised on Mr. Peanut's movements."

"Roger. Nuthouse out."

"Goldilocks?" Hutch protested, and Starsky blithely ignored him.

"Papa Bear to Wolfpack."

"We read you, Papa Bear. Alpha Male's stopped at a cocktail lounge on his way home ‒ seems real pleased with himself."

"Figures," Hutch muttered darkly.

"Stay on him, Wolfpack. Advise when he settles into his den."

"Will do. Wolfpack out."

Starsky stuffed the radio back in his jacket pocket, and gestured in the general direction of the faculty parking lot.

"Shall we go?"

Hutch shrugged and started to walk, then stopped.

"Goldilocks?" he complained again, and Starsky reached over and playfully riffled his thinning hair.

"Hey ‒ I could'a called ya 'Fuzzy-Wuzzy.' Count your blessings."

Hutch cast despairing eyes at heaven and shook his head.

"Such as they are," he said, and started walking again.

* * *

During the next four days, Hutch carefully established a routine that ran from the isolated relative splendor of his own four-bedroom suite-in-exile in the graduate students' dormitory to his borrowed office, to one quiet reading section in the library, and then back to the dorm. He took his meals alone, mostly in the Student Union or in the too-hip-for-words breakfast, deli, and sandwich shop just over the invisible line between the city and the campus, across the street from the library building. He made himself an apparent creature of habit, carrying the routine almost unchanged through the weekend. He tried to spot the cops who were covering him without actually looking for them, running his peripheral vision for all it was worth. Some were easy, like the two guys who moved into the dorm suite next to his, ostensibly for one of the short continuing education courses. He debated with himself about the black girl who hung out in the library; she seemed likely, a little too watchful for just a student, but with a lot of women being more concerned about self-defense, he couldn't really be sure, and he made it a matter of principle not to ask Starsky.

Even with all of his senses tuned to their peak, though, he never caught a glimpse of Jenkins. At the same time, he couldn't be certain that the man wasn't there. Forced to be circumspect and avoid discovery at all costs, Harris and Hidalgo routinely lost Jenkins for as much as an hour up to four times a day, despite their best efforts to stay on him, and no one could absolutely confirm where he had been or what he had done while he was unobserved.

Starsky was another matter. He made himself scarce during most of the day, when the bustle of the campus made any assault unlikely, but Hutch seemed unerringly to sense him as soon as he was near, whether he was visible or not. From whatever vantage point he'd found, Starsky would see his partner's head come up, just a fraction, like a dog catching an elusive scent on the breeze; then Hutch would return to whatever he was doing and pay no more attention to his hidden shadow. An hour or so after Hutch returned to the dorm at night, Starsky would knock softly for admittance, and he stayed each night in the suite despite Hutch's attempts to tease him into going home to spend the night with his wife.

The pathway near the dorm seemed to offer the best potential as an ambush zone. Isolated and lined with trees and bushes, it served only the dorm, which was more than half-empty during the summer term. It ran in a meandering series of loops and curves through the campus's largest parklike green space, having been laid out for maximum esthetics rather than maximum utility. Starsky fretted at the length and twists of the stretch, all too aware of the many hiding places along the path where a quick and powerful man could lie in wait to snatch a victim and return to cover without being spotted, unless the tail on the victim stayed so close as to be obvious enough to discourage the snatch attempt in the first place. Hutch's next-door-neighbor undercover cops jogged that path at least twice a day, close to the time he walked it, in the hopes of being able to spot any clue to a set-up.

The only break in the otherwise unremitting tension came at night, when Hutch, finally free from any fear of outside observation, used the telephone as his lifeline to Denise. Starsky did his best not to listen to one-sided conversations that often appeared to make no logical sense, and that sometimes included long silences and occasional quiet snatches of song. He felt vaguely guilty about being able to go home and kiss Cheryl in the morning, when Hutch and Denise were limited to the phone. They didn't meet again in person until Monday afternoon.

At two o'clock, Hutch paused outside the faculty meeting room and took a deep breath, then opened the door and walked in without hesitation. Six pairs of eyes locked on him like targeting radar, and only one set failed to launch missiles.

"Benedict Arnold, I presume?" Tony DeFiore drawled.

"Tony!" Denise's voice snapped like cracking ice, brittle and cold. "We will keep this discussion on a professional level, and we are all entitled to our own opinions."

Holly Sanderson looked disappointed more than anything else.

"I didn't think you'd be coming."

"I signed a contract," Hutch said mildly. "And while I may have raised criticisms of the path that the course has chosen, I still feel a duty to help it on its way, and give these kids the fullest possible picture they can get."

"As do I." The gruff voice from the doorway behind him belonged to Raymond Wolfe. He looked Hutch up and down. "I misjudged you. You do have honor."

"Hail, hail, the gang's all here," Tony muttered, but quelled at a swift look from Denise. The others in the room shifted uncomfortably, but held their peace. Holly looked at the two men still standing near the doorway, and then at Denise. In silence, virtually expressionless, Denise cocked her head and gestured with one hand at the circle of six chairs already gathered on one side of the room. Hutch limped forward, dropped his briefcase into an additional chair, and used his free hand to wrestle it awkwardly into place. No one volunteered to help, but Jeff and Chandri shifted their chairs apart to make room for him. Wolfe waited an additional beat, but when it became obvious that no one was going to set a place for him, he harrumphed and followed Hutch's lead, dragging a chair to settle in between Denise and Holly.

"Okay," Holly said. "Tomorrow night is the history session. Raymond, you'll take center stage. Are you planning any more departures from the script?"

"I see no reason to tamper with my scheduled lecture. It covers the points I intended to raise, in any case."

"I think we should change one piece of casting, though," Denise said, her voice slightly barbed. "If Ken is going to be an _agent provocateur_ anyway, we may as well put him in the role right from the start. Unless you object, Tina?"

"No way," the woman demurred, sarcasm uppermost in her tone. "He's welcome to it. After his performance last Thursday, it's clear he's more provocative than I could ever be."

"Provocation and challenge aren't necessarily bad things," Chandri said calmly, and most of the others looked at him in surprise. He spread his hands. "If they force both our students and ourselves to really think about our positions, and to go beyond positions to confront issues, then they serve to bolster understanding and truly educate. Is that not why we designed the _agent provocateur_ concept into the course in the first place ‒ to force conflict and incite challenge in order to make students truly assess the ideas we raise? It cannot hurt that concept ‒ however much it surprises us ‒ to find that the devil's advocate actually believes in his argument."

For the briefest instant, while virtually everyone else stared at Chandri, Hutch closed his eyes, feeling the reprieve from guilt like a lover's caress on his soul. When he opened his eyes again, he saw Denise watching him with the faintest of smiles on her lips, and he knew beyond doubt that Shan had not devised that delicate save entirely on his own. Then her expression blanked and she shifted her attention to Chandri, and Hutch locked his sudden relief into the mental safe that held the rest of his secrets, and kept his voice dispassionate.

"I appreciate your view of things, Shan. And if my approach to our ‒ philosophical debate ‒ was overly aggressive, I apologize. I did intend to make a point, but I may have been more abrasive than I meant to be."

"Devil, rather than just advocate?" Jeff asked, venturing to tease in an effort to lighten the atmosphere, and Hutch found a tentative little smile of his own.

"Maybe. Accept an olive branch?"

Hutch saw nearly everyone in the room flash a covert glance from him to Denise, as they all wondered on how many levels that apology was offered, and he stole a look of his own. Her face was calm and composed, giving nothing away, but she chose not to answer and did not look directly at him. Holly, shifting her attention quickly between the two of them, sighed almost imperceptibly.

"On behalf of the team, I'll accept your apology ‒ provisionally." Holly raised one cautioning hand. "But next time you're going to take off sideways, warn us first? It will minimize disruption of the class if the rest of us at least know that you intend to play ‒ or be, or whatever ‒ devil's advocate before you go and do it."

"I promise." Hutch pitched the rest of his answer directly toward Denise, figuring that everyone would expect him to at least try. "Believe me, however it may have looked, I don't want to torpedo this course. I've put too much into it ‒ just like the rest of you."

Denise met his eyes, and he didn't think that anyone else could read what really ran beneath the acid edge on her voice.

"Then the _agent provocateur_ role should suit you just fine. Make the most of it."

There was a moment of silence, and then Holly cleared her throat.

"Okay ‒ let's run through the scenario, shall we? We need to adjust for the role shift; Tina, would you be comfortable handling the intro?"

A little ripple ran across the circle as people shifted in their chairs and changed mental gears, gathering up copies of the course materials and finding their places in the mass of pages. Concentration worked its usual magic, gradually draining away animosity and replacing it with anticipation for the Tuesday night class. By the end of the three hour working session, the comfort level in the room had risen noticeably, and the people who tucked edited papers back in their briefcases and stood up to leave were far less tense and far more amiable than their arriving selves had been. Even Raymond Wolfe condescended to smile when Tina complimented him on the structure of his presentation.

Under the cover of the general banter, Hutch paused beside and just slightly behind Denise, and pitched his voice for her ears only.

"Thanks. For finding a way to let me do this without ruining everything."

She slipped him one sideways glance and almost smiled, keeping her voice as low as his.

"It should have occurred to me before; I just wasn't thinking straight. Then I couldn't tell you until I was sure Shan would buy into it. Sorry."

"Hey ‒ I could have thought of it too." His lips twitched. "Too wrapped up in the forest to pay attention to the trees, huh?"

"Details, details," she murmured airily back. She glanced up to see Holly watching them thoughtfully, although no one else seemed to be paying attention. "Better split before someone thinks we're gonna kiss and make up."

"Yeah. Love you, Neese." He let himself look at her openly, and saw her watching him under lowered lids from the corners of her eyes, although she didn't turn her head to acknowledge him.

"You too," she said, through lips that barely moved.

He hesitated, as if to reach out or say more, then shrugged and turned away. Jeff and Tony were animatedly setting up the bets on their next tennis match; he followed the two of them out the door.

Holly drifted over in his wake to pause beside Denise as the psychologist stuffed papers in her bag.

"Do I detect a thaw in the winter?"

Denise threw her a rueful smile.

"Maybe. Too early to say whether it's spring yet, though."

"Well, if you make up as thoroughly as you break up, better make sure there aren't any cops around, or you might get arrested for lewd and lascivious behavior. Then again, if you give me some warning, maybe I could sell tickets?"

Denise laughed; she couldn't help it.

"Holly, you are good for the soul. Give it a little time, okay?"

"I just hate to see a good team split. He may have gone a little overboard there, but ‒ the two of you are right as right, I know it."

"I guess ‒ I do too, deep down somewhere. Just let it work its way up to the top."

"Don't take too long, honey." Holly winked. "Somebody else might make a play for him in the meantime."

_That's what I'm afraid of, though not the way you mean._ Denise bit back the instant response and just raised an eyebrow instead.

"I'll bear that in mind. Anyone in particular I should watch out for?"

"Looking at me? I know better than to get between the irresistible force and the immovable object." Holly hefted her briefcase and let the banter drop. "Going my way?"

"You know," Denise said, smiling, "I think I am."

* * *

The Tuesday morning sunlight pouring through the kitchen window made Starsky blink in protest as he dropped into a chair and yawned hugely. Cheryl shook her head knowingly as she poured coffee in his cup.

"Did the two of you get any sleep last night, or just spend the whole time talking?"

"Hey! We got sense. 'Course we got sleep."

"Starting when ‒ three a.m.?" Cheryl settled into her own chair and laced her fingers around her steaming cup. Her smile faded. "How's Hutch?"

"Wired. You remember how he used ta get, when we got stuck on a case and just hadda wait for it? Like that. All wound up and no place to go."

"Sounds like somebody else I know," she said pointedly, and he grinned.

"Yeah, well, I can blow it off easier." He sobered up fast. "I never realized how much runnin' used to calm him down, make him relax. Now he can't even wear down the carpet pacin', so he plays guitar instead. Played five hours nonstop, last night. He's gotta have callouses on his callouses, not to slice up his hands that way."

"Denise plays piano," Cheryl said. She smiled slightly when he looked up, surprised. "Hey, I figured turnabout's fair play, and I thought she could use the company. We had a pretty long chat of our own, last night."

"No fair, comparin' notes!"

"Why not? I'm sure you boys do."

"That's different!"

"Oh, really?"

He opened his mouth, but no snappy words came to mind, and he closed his mouth before she would make some smart comment about catching flies. He covered by gulping coffee instead, and very nearly burned his tongue.

"Aahhh! You tryin' to get even with me, or somethin'?"

"Or something. Slow down a little." The teasing gave way to a ghost of concern. "Evening will be here before you know it." She paused for an instant, then went on. "Neese invited me over for an early dinner tonight, before class. I told her I'd stay, keep her company."

"Good idea." Without warning, he captured the hand she had rested on the table, and leaned across the corner to give her a kiss. "You are a kind and thoughtful lady, Mrs. Starsky; it's no wonder I'm in love with you."

"I'm a cop's wife," she said practically. "I understand what it's like to wait and worry."

"How's Neese handling this?"

"Now you ask? Think about it: she didn't even have the chance to get used to the idea that Hutch had been a cop once upon a time before he dove right back into the line of fire. At least I knew what you did for a living before I fell in love with you! All in all, though, she's doing a better job of dealing with this than I would, in her shoes."

"Comes of being a shrink, maybe," he mused.

"Maybe." She gave herself a little shake. "I'll just be glad when all this is over. Am I just getting old, or is this really scarier than all those times years ago when you and Hutch hung it over the edge?"

"We're just outa practice for it, schweetheart." He kissed her again, then glanced at his watch and gulped down his coffee in earnest, ignoring the burn in exchange for the buzz, setting the cup down as he stood up. "Gotta run."

"Not so fast." She grabbed his hand both to pull him to a halt and to surge to her feet. She snagged up a paper bag from the kitchen counter and held it out to him. "Breakfast. I knew you'd never actually sit down for it."

He caught her by both shoulders and kissed her thoroughly before taking the bag from her hand.

"You are an angel." He turned to go, but then turned back again. "Look, carry the cellular with you tonight, okay? So we can reach Neese anytime?" He saw her eyes darken, and hastily reached back to chuck her lightly under the chin. "To tell her she can stop worrying and everything's okay," he amended.

She exhaled tension and smiled just a bit.

"All right. But that had better be what you say. Now, get going before you start griping about being late, okay?"

He gave her a Cheshire grin on his way out the door. She shook her head after him, and then turned to collect the dirty cups.

* * *

The syncopated knock was identification enough, but Hutch still paused.

"Who is it?"

"Who d'ya think, dummy?" Starsky's cheery voice carried through the hollow door of the dorm suite as if it wasn't even there, and Hutch shook his head in resignation as he slipped the chain and unlocked the door. Starsky breezed past him, uncharacteristically carrying a small briefcase in one hand. Hutch automatically checked to be certain that the corridor was empty before he closed and relocked the door. When he turned, he found that Starsky had already deposited the briefcase on the nearest flat surface and flipped up the catches to reveal a nest of electronics and a roll of medical tape.

"Remember how to wear a wire? You start by taking off the jacket and shirt," Starsky said helpfully.

"How did I know it was going to come to this?" Hutch asked rhetorically as he shrugged off his sportcoat, stripped off his tie, and started unbuttoning his shirt. "Where those things don't tickle, they itch."

"Ahh, but we use better tape, now ‒ hospital stuff." He held up the roll dramatically. "Hy-po-all-er-gen-ic ‒ not supposed to itch." He raised an eyebrow. "'Course, you couldn't prove it by me; I haven't had to wear one of these in a long time, thank God ‒ always hated having to shave patches or get my hair ripped out. Least you never had to worry about that," he concluded, surveying Hutch's smooth, hairless back and chest. Hutch snapped his shirt at him, and Starsky danced aside. "Hey ‒ just because you're jealous ..."

"That I'm not a furry ape like you? Not hardly," Hutch said archly. "Come on ‒ may as well get this over with."

"Transmitter's lighter than it used to be," Starsky offered, as he started taping the unit's flat box to the small of Hutch's back. Hutch flinched away from the first contact.

"Where've you been keeping that thing ‒ the freezer?" he complained.

"Right next to the stethoscope," Starsky agreed. "Stop squirming, will you? It's got longer range and better sound, too. We'll be able to stay well out of sight and still hear everything you say." He finished positioning the box, then draped the slender fiber optic microphone cord along Hutch's ribs, taping it down every few inches, and finally ran the cord midway up his chest, leaving the end hanging loose. "Shirt."

Hutch put his shirt back on, slapping once at Starsky's hand when his partner snuck a finger between the buttons to flip the end of the cord out from underneath the shirt. Starsky gave him an innocent look.

"Hey, it plugs into this nifty tie clip. Can't let it get lost in there, you know."

"Yeah." Hutch finished tucking in the shirt and started working on the tie. "What's the drill with Wolfe? Didn't go too well, did it?"

If his determinedly cheerful manner hadn't already given it away, Starsky's sour expression would have told the tale.

"Yeah, well, we couldn't very well run him as bait without tellin' him we thought he could be the next target. He didn't think much of your theory, by the way; 'stuff and nonsense,' I think he called it. He doesn't believe in the slightest that any killer would have the ‒ I don't know what he thinks, class? temerity? whatever ‒ to try to take him down. Thinks he's immortal."

"Figures. But will he play ball?"

"Under protest, just to be able to say 'I told you so' when it's all over. He's promised to cooperate with Wolfpack."

"So long as things work out right, he can say anything he pleases afterwards. And I hope he does; we want this turkey to come after me, anyway, and leave him alone." Hutch collected the tiebar from Starsky's hand, plugged the fine cord into its tiny hole, and adjusted the clip. Starsky pulled a unit that looked like a portable tape player out of the case, slid on its headset, and gave him a nod. "Testing, testing, K-K-E-N cop radio live and on the air."

"Loud and clear, in stereo yet. Just don't forget to keep broadcasting."

"Wonderful. Now I'll have to walk around talking to myself. That'll be great for the image."

"Hey, everybody knows you egghead types are a little strange. Nobody'll even notice."

"Just be sure to pay attention to the lecture tonight, there'll be a test later."

"Fat chance ‒ that's my one guaranteed naptime, since you'll be surrounded by a hundred twenty-some witnesses." Starsky sobered. "Hey, you'll be out of sight, but I promise, you won't be out of mind."

"I know." Hutch smiled, holding his eyes; then he turned, picked up his jacket, and put it on. He collected his briefcase and cane, then took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Showtime."

Starsky smiled crookedly.

"Break a leg?"

"Not again!"

* * *

Hutch repeated his carefully established routine with the most convincing air of nonchalance he could muster, walking from dorm to office to library and back to office again with assorted stops for study and meetings and meals. It was a curiously schizophrenic experience, because he was simultaneously aware both of eyes on his back and of the relative summer-term scarcity of people along the routes he walked. Despite the jacket and tie, he felt oddly naked, but that sense was too unfocused and diffused to call fear. By the time he was preparing to head over to the lecture hall for class that evening, however, the nerves that kept him humming absentmindedly under his breath had also robbed him of any detailed memory of what he'd done during the day, and an unexpected knock on his office door twitched old fighter's reflexes to bring him half out of his chair into a defensive crouch.

"Yes?"

The door opened and Starsky poked his head around it. Hutch exhaled in exasperated relief and stood up fully.

"Can't you do any other songs?" Starsky asked plaintively as he stepped in and closed the door. The surveillance headset lay loosely around his neck, with its cord trailing down to the ersatz tape player carried casually in his right hand.

"Hmm?"

Starsky tapped the headset.

"You been hummin' 'Desperado' all afternoon. I used to like that song."

"Sorry," Hutch said, with manifest insincerity. "You did tell me to keep broadcasting."

"Yeah, well, most radio stations change the record occasionally."

"I'll try to remember that." Hutch snapped his briefcase closed, but rested it vertically on his desk instead of lifting it. "Somehow I get the feeling this isn't just a social call on the request line."

The skin around Starsky's eyes tightened, and Hutch felt his own hand clench on the briefcase handle in response as he realized what the message was even before Starsky could speak it.

"Harris and Hidalgo lost Jenkins about twenty minutes ago, and nobody's been able to pick him up. Harris says he made the tail and deliberately shook it; said he turned around and looked right at 'em and grinned, and then he just disappeared, usin' a whole bunch of students gettin' outa class to cover himself. He's laughin' at us."

"So it's out in the open now." Strangely enough, the idea helped to settle Hutch down, giving the floating anxiety that had plagued him all day a focus and a target.

"Yeah ‒ if we had any doubts, we don't any more."

"And he knows we're onto him, and he doesn't care." The words sparked a thought, but its flash faded away even as Hutch reached for it. Frustrated, he slammed a fist down onto the briefcase. "We're still missing something, Starsk ‒ we still don't know _why_ he's doing this, and until we do, we won't really know who or what he's after."

"But we do know somethin' we didn't know twenty minutes ago. You said it: he knows we been watchin' him, and now he's runnin' a game on us. Makes me wonder what else he knows, and how long he's been stringin' us on."

"He may be nuts, but he's not stupid," Hutch mused. "Suppose he figures we've got his targets staked out ‒ will he go ahead anyway, or pick somebody else, or just sit tight and have himself a good time watching us make fools of ourselves? Is he _crazy_ crazy, or crazy like a fox?"

"He's makin' _me_ crazy. And if you don't get movin', he's gonna be makin' you late. To class, that is."

"That'll never do," Hutch said drily. Leaving the briefcase and cane on the desk, he reached over with both hands, snagged the headset from around Starsky's neck, and set it into place on Starsky's head. He addressed his comments ostentatiously toward his tieclip. "Just make sure that you're not so wrapped up listening to this that you let him sneak up on _you_. Cops can get as single-minded as any professor ‒ he might decide you fit his bill tonight, if Wolfe and I are too well covered."

"You're a real ray of sunshine, you know that? Get goin'."

They traded a look, and Hutch nodded. He picked up his briefcase and cane and headed for the door.

"See you," he said, and then the door closed behind him. Starsky considered for a moment, then tugged off the headset and pulled the handheld police radio out of his pocket.

"Papa Bear to all Egghead units ‒ listen up. Watch yourselves, not just your sheep ‒ Mr. Peanut may decide to switch targets and bag himself a shepherd instead. I wouldn't like that. Acknowledge."

"This is Nuthouse, Papa Bear," Hidalgo's voice came back. "Gotcha."

"Wolfpack, Papa Bear. That's a roger."

"Nuthouse, what's your twenty?"

"Nuthouse is at the lecture hall, Papa Bear, trees outside the rear door. No sign of Mr. Peanut. Cashew arrived five minutes ago, though."

"Wolfpack?"

"Alpha Male is heading in the door now, Papa Bear. We're at the west side entrance, going in."

"Good. Keep your eyes peeled. Goldilocks is on his way. Papa Bear out." Starsky slid the police radio back into his pocket. He heard faint music coming from the earphones lying around his neck and sighed as he picked them up, but his expression changed as he settled them into place and the noise became clear. Hutch wasn't humming "Desperado" any more ‒ he was singing instead, very quietly, but every word was distinct enough to turn the headset into a time machine.

"'All I want is black bean soup and you to bring it to me/Be my love while love will stay, and wear your ribbons for me ...'"

Starsky grinned and shook his head, and joined in softly on the chorus as he headed out the door in Hutch's wake.

* * *

Hutch hadn't really expected an attack on the way to class, so he wasn't surprised to make the walk uneventfully. All through the evening, one corner of his mind ran his role in the show while the rest chewed over the missing piece of the puzzle; he couldn't get the question "why?" out of his head, no matter how hard he tried to concentrate on Wolfe's history lecture. The tiny voice of his conscience nagged him with the obligation to be more fiery, more provocative, but his heart wasn't in it. He thought that he caught concerned looks from Denise from time to time, and puzzled ones from Holly Sanderson, but the course had definitely taken backstage place to the irritation of knowing that something was missing from the murder investigation, from the hunt that was using him as bait. The lecture was over almost before he knew it, and the students spilled out into the night followed by most of the instructors to leave him the chance to snatch a minute with Denise.

"Are you _sure_ you want to do this, dearheart?" she asked, and reached up to touch his cheek without even glancing around to see whether they were unobserved. "Swear, you're vibrating like a guitar string."

"I'm fine." He managed a brief smile. "The music may be a little strange, but ..." He shrugged, and was pleased to coax an answering smile from her.

"Promise me ‒ if he doesn't try for you on the way back to the dorm, you'll come home tonight?" She glanced past him, and even without turning he could tell that Cheryl was not far behind him, just distant enough to give them privacy. "I've hit my limit on being alone, even alone with friends."

"I promise. If he doesn't make a play, it'll mean we read him wrong anyway, so there won't be any reason to keep up the act." Her fingers flexed on his arms with enough force to leave bruises behind, and he caught her wrists in a reassuring grip. "Hey ‒ whatever goes down, I'll be fine. Starsky's playing mother hen, for crying out loud, and bitching about the music selection." He won another smile from her and felt her relax, and impulsively drew up her hands and kissed her fingertips before letting her go. "One way or another, I'll see you later tonight."

"See that you do."

Neither of them said goodbye, but she gave him a long look before turning away to collect the course materials and start packing her briefcase, gradually beginning to chat with Cheryl as she worked. Hutch shifted over to the side of the lecture hall where Starsky waited in the cover of a doorway, listening to the soft grumble of the radio traffic.

"Roger, Wolfpack," Starsky said quietly, and then lowered the portable receiver as he met Hutch's questioning eyes. "Wolfe made it to his car without a hitch, he's on his way off campus. If our boy's stayin' true to form, Wolfe's off his huntin' grounds."

"So. My turn."

"Yeah." A smile twitched at one corner of Starsky's mouth. "Now we get to see if your hunches are worth anything more than they used to be."

"Hey ‒ I always was the brains of this outfit, remember?" The old jokes could still steady them both, and Hutch flashed a tight smile. "Just don't get too laid back, or far back, hmm?"

"Go take a hike."

The two of them held a look; then Hutch nodded and headed through the door without hesitation, cane in one hand and briefcase in the other.

"Goldilocks is on the prowl, Eggheads," Starsky said into the radio. "Stay sharp, now." He slid on the headset, leaning up against the door, counting under his breath to give Hutch a healthy head start. He took one last glance at Cheryl and Denise, to meet his wife's eyes past Neese's ramrod-straight back, and then gave her an encouraging nod before he opened the door and slipped out into the dark.

* * *

Hutch had forgotten the seductive exhilaration of terror, the way imminent danger sharpened every sense and made every breath deeper. That was a secret he'd never shared with Starsky or even admitted to himself, because of what it implied ‒ that he could be an adrenaline junkie, a danger addict. He'd convinced himself that he hadn't really missed it, taking chances, but as he walked through a night suddenly alive with subtle scents and tiny sounds, he realized that he'd blinded himself, blocking the memories of the vivid hues and crisp images that incipient mortality could paint even on the darkest night.

His shoes scuffed in halting but steady rhythm on the asphalt path, with the cane adding syncopation. He could smell the faintest scent of tar, its warm and biting spice rising from a pathway so soaked in daytime sun that it still hadn't fully cooled in the evening air. His nose picked out honeysuckle among the bushes, and the sharp greenness of morning-cut grass. He heard his breathing, closer and more intimate than the music of the unseen insects in the shrubbery, the crickets and locusts and things he couldn't name. His eyes were at a disadvantage, since the waning moon was low and shrouded in clouds, but the path and the bushes beside it still seemed oddly distinct. He felt the fast but even beat of the pulse in his chest and throat as a bass throb below hearing range that carried through the bones rather than the ears, and his mouth, though suddenly dry, tasted of copper and anticipation.

He had forgotten that he could feel so completely alive.

The aloneness pressed in on him as he got further away from the lecture hall and the heart of the campus. There were no human sounds in the night other than his own; everyone ‒ students, teachers, cops, the whole rest of the city ‒ could all have vanished. The trees around the path even cut off the traffic noise from beyond the campus, leaving the darkness only to nature and to him.

And, just maybe, to a murderer.

It was the nonhuman quality of that quiet emptiness that woke him up to realize that Starsky, too, had nothing human to listen to. Hutch had a fleeting but powerfully clear image of Starsky cursing at him for his continued silence, railing at him to 'say _something_, dammit, start whistling "Desperado" for cryin' out loud, anything, come _on_' ‒ and he couldn't repress the grin as he cleared his throat.

"Sorry about that dead air, sportsfans," he muttered, _sotto voce_. "Just some ‒ umm ‒ technical difficulties." He wished that the wire ran two ways; he'd have given a lot to hear Starsky's exasperated snort, instead of just imagining it. "We now return you to our regularly scheduled program." He started humming the first melody that came to mind, without thinking about it; all of his concentration was extended into the night around him, tasting the air, waiting for the dark to become solid and grab him by the neck.

His moving zone of silence caught him instead. Very gradually, he became aware that the crickets stilled as he approached, and then took up singing again after he passed; he walked in a little totally human circle of quick breaths and faster pulse, overlaid by a veneer of hummed music. He didn't _feel_ any other such circles anywhere near him; wouldn't there be a similar silence around someone lying in wait for him, the distrust of nature for a human predator? The farther he walked, the closer he got to the bulk of the dorm building with its scattered lit windows, the stronger grew the sense that he really _was_ alone, that the predator lying in wait was only wishful thinking, and that the real answer lay somewhere else in the puzzle.

Snatches of past conversations played again in his head. _He's an obsessive personality,_ Neese's voice said, _someone who locks focus on things and won't be sidetracked._ Her voice shifted to Hidalgo's lightly accented chicano: _He goes on binges with different interests, kind of like an obsession of the month club._ And Harris, then, always more terse than his partner: _Dean's List and then some; probably close to a genius I.Q._ _Fantasy gaming,_ Hidalgo added, and Starsky said _he knows we been watchin' him, and now he's runnin' a game on us._ The replayed dialogue began to speed up, with the lines almost running over each other: Hidalgo's _he's been into just about everything_ hitting Harris's _third year pre-med, majoring in biochem with minors in psych and biology_, butting up against Starsky's _as nuthouses go, the Glen's a resort_, sliding into Denise saying _we see everything in the colors and shapes our training taught us to expect, and we figure that other people see things the same way_ and Starsky's sour _got psycho written all over it._ His own voice chimed in with _too wrapped up in the forest to pay attention to the trees_, and Starsky's added _makes me wonder how long he's been stringin' us on._ He heard Hidalgo say _guess he figures there's nothing he can't do_, followed by Starsky noting _you're not the only target out there_, and he himself asking _is he __crazy__ crazy, or crazy like a fox?_

He didn't realize that his stride was slowing or that he'd stopped humming to listen to the ghost voices of his memory. He was oblivious to the light just ahead of him where the path emerged from the trees into the broad clearing around the dorm building. He shut out everything else ‒ even the tiny voice that shrieked at him to keep his guard up ‒ to strain to hear the answer.

_He's runnin' a game on us ... he's been stringin' us on,_ Starsky said; _He may be crazy but he's definitely not stupid_, Denise added; _Obsession of the month,_ Hidalgo offered,_ guess he figures there's nothing he can't do_; _You're not the only target out there,_ Starsky warned; _How many interviews was Jenkins in on?_ he heard himself ask; _I deliberately went off into some pretty esoteric corners during my little interview,_ Denise began, and Hutch himself abruptly cut her off with _You're about to have company ..._

"And one of them's our killer," he muttered out loud, finishing the thought, and the picture abruptly came into unbearable focus. He came to a dead stop next to the dorm building without even seeing it, and the words poured out loud and as fast as he could make them.

"Starsky, damn it, he's after _Neese_! He's not stupid, he's not even crazy ‒ he's playing a game and she's inside the rules! Get to our place, I'm on my way!"

Automatically, without thinking, he tried to run, heading for his car in the parking lot beyond the dorm building. He stumbled badly on the first stride but caught himself, dropping his briefcase to save his balance. He pushed the pace as much as he could; it was more of a lurching stagger than a run, but it covered ground fast, and it brought him to the car with Oregon plates in the blessedly convenient handicapped parking spot right at the front of the lot. He nearly fell against the car in his haste, supporting himself with one hand while the other fumbled in his pocket for the keys, and he barely remembered to throw his cane in before he dropped into the driver's seat, gunned the engine, and tried to outrun his headlights to the borrowed apartment on the opposite side of the campus.

* * *

" ... I'm on my way!" The voice in his earphones dissolved into static and rapid breathing, and Starsky wanted to curse.

"Hutch!" he shouted, knowing it was useless, knowing that his partner was too far away to hear, but unable to stop himself. Then, "Shit!" he said, and swept off the headset as he grabbed the police radio from his jacket pocket. He wanted to run, but couldn't possibly run and talk at the same time; he settled for a fast trot back toward the lecture hall and his car as he hit the transmit key. "Papa Bear to all Egghead units, we've been had! Mr. Peanut is after the lady shrink at 1031 Hilltop, repeat 1031 Hilltop. Goldilocks is enroute. Back him up, make it fast, keep it silent! Go!" Without waiting for acknowledgments, he twisted the tuner dial to change frequencies on the radio, and the unit crackled with the tail end of a dispatch announcement.

" ... Ten-four, Zebra Twelve."

Starsky pushed the transmit button.

"Chief Starsky to Central."

"Central. Go ahead, Chief."

"This is an emergency. Get me a patch through to cellular phone number 555-7768."

"Ten-four, Chief, stand by."

He knew it didn't really take as long as it seemed before he heard the odd chirp of a telephone ringing on the open radio line. One ring, two, the start of a third ...

"Hello?" The connection was less than perfect, but Cheryl's voice was unmistakable; he hadn't known he could feel so worried and so relieved, all at the same time.

"Honey, where are you, is Neese with you, over?"

"We're ‒ at the student union." He heard the slight hesitation of her surprise at his urgent tone starting to shade into fear. "We thought we'd stop for a cappuccino, not stare at four walls and worry ‒ David, what's wrong?"

He closed his eyes and released the breath he hadn't known he was holding as new avenues opened for his mind to race down.

"Maybe nothing. Look: we think Jenkins may be waiting at Neese's place. Hutch is on his way there. We might still be able to pull this off, if Hutch does what I think he will. Steer clear for a while yet, okay? Over."

"My God," she was saying as he released the transmit button, and he could hear the sharp questioning tone of Denise's voice in the background, although he couldn't make out the words, but he heard Cheryl's answer. "No, he's okay ‒ they think he's after _you_. David? Can you still hear me? Um ‒ over?"

"Yeah ‒ go ahead. Over."

"Take care of him." The voice on the other end was suddenly Denise's, not Cheryl's. "We're on our way home. Save the lecture; we won't come within two blocks until we see lights and sirens. Promise. Get going. Over and out."

"Neese ‒" He barely got the protest started before he heard the line go dead, and the dispatch operator came back on.

"They've disconnected, Chief. Should I try to get them back?"

"No ‒ wouldn't matter. Alert units in the vicinity to stand by for possible backup at 1031 Hilltop, but not to move in until my signal; I don't want a marked unit anywhere in sight unless I yell for one, got that?"

"Ten-four, Chief.'

"Starsky out." He flipped the frequency selector back to the tactical channel the campus stakeout teams were using. "Papa Bear to Egghead units, Goldilocks will try to spring the trap at the Hilltop address. Do nothing to interfere unless it goes sour. Stay low, no lights, no sirens. I'm on my way."

Then, finally, he could _run_.

* * *

Two blocks from his borrowed home, Hutch killed the headlights and swung the car in to the curb. The neighborhood was quiet, with nothing obviously disturbed or out of place. The line of two and three-level garden apartments sat across the street from a park-like area of the campus, without the bustle that clustered around the lecture halls and parking lots and offices. Through the open window of his car he could faintly hear a television set and maybe somebody's stereo, but the noises were muted, not blaring; quite a few professors lived in the vicinity, and they were notably quieter than their student proteges.

He sat where he was for a few minutes, trying to feel with senses that went beyond the five he could describe. Even from two blocks away, he could pick out his building: the front portico was a dark blot, in sharp contrast to the well-lit entryways of its identical neighbors, and he heard Starsky's voice saying _you oughta get that porch light fixed; almost couldn't find the doorbell._

"No shit, buddy," he muttered. "And hemlocks on both sides, just to make it really easy." The tall bushes would provide perfect cover, particularly in the dark. His eyes tracked up the front of the building to the second floor, but the only light in their apartment was the garden timer on the porch.

He chewed over the possibilities. Either Jenkins was waiting in the hemlocks, or he wasn't; either he'd already struck with his usual silence at Neese, or he was still waiting, or he wasn't there at all and Hutch was simply blowing smoke. Hutch was inclined to doubt his greatest fear, that Jenkins had struck at Neese and scored; he trusted that Starsky would have called out the cavalry if he thought she was in danger, and the absence of sirens and flashing lights argued that Starsky knew Neese was somewhere else, and safe.

Which put things squarely back with him, and he had no way of knowing what was going on.

"Next time we do this, partner, _you_ wear the wire and _I_ get the two-way," he grumbled. "I just hope to hell I've got backup out there somewhere, 'cause if I don't, well, you're the one gets to explain it all to Neese." He scanned the anonymous cars parked along the street, but they told him no more and no less than he expected; if he'd been able to spot one of them as a cop car, so could Jenkins, and the trap had to be invisible in order to work. The only problem was, that it was as invisible to the bait as it was to the target ‒ assuming that the trap was there at all. "I almost wish you were still driving that stupid striped tomato of yours, just so I'd know for certain that you were around."

He gauged the spaces between his current position and the house, and decided that it would look reasonable if he left the car here. Maybe a compact could have gotten closer, but if Jenkins _was_ watching for Neese or for him, he wouldn't be suspicious at their parking some distance away. Then again, if he stayed in the car much longer, anyone with a grain of brains _would_ start to wonder. It was time to get the show on the road.

"Here goes nothing," he said, and he collected the cane, opened the car door, and stepped out.

The sudden sense of _deja vu_ was dizzying; he could have been back on the path to the dorm, because even if the view was different, the feeling was the same. He kept his eyes forward, and all his world narrowed steadily down to the darkened doorway, the sound of his footsteps, the beat of his pulse, and the wind of his breath. Ten steps along the way he remembered to add music; ten steps later he was briefly amused to realize what he was quietly singing ‒ "Don't give up on us, baby/Don't make this wrong seem right ..." _Hell no_, he thought, and kept limping up the sidewalk. "The future isn't just one night ..." _Unless it's this one._

He made the turn from the front sidewalk toward the door, looking down to manage the step up to the porch as he deliberately _didn't_ glance to the side and reached with his free hand into his pocket for the keys ...

The hands that seized his throat from behind were a shocking surprise even though he'd been expecting them; the music choked off in mid-note, and for a moment he scrabbled instinctively with both hands at the rubber-gloved, steel-fingered vise, trying in vain to drag it open. There wasn't time to shout, and precious little even to fight; the pressure was unbelievable, crushing his windpipe and pinching off the artery in his neck, and his vision started to go in red-edged swirls of black and grey. The guy was behind and to his right, not close enough to strike; he was staying back, using his prodigious strength at the full length of his arms to keep his distance from panicked kicks and swinging fists. Hutch struggled to step back and turn in toward the guy, to put torque on those wrists to break their grip, but his martial arts-trained attacker just stepped back and turned with him, anticipating his moves and giving him no leverage.

"Bet you thought I'd given up, hey? When I didn't take your bait?" The voice in his ear held little strain, despite the effort Jenkins had to be exerting, and the pressure on his throat eased just the merest fraction. "Decided to stop playing at cops and come home to your girlfriend, hmm? Well, surprise, Professor ‒ you're not as smart as you thought you were." The fingers tightened again, and this time went further.

Desperate, fading, Hutch snatched at the only chance he had. He hadn't dropped the cane. He forced his hands to abandon their doomed reflex of trying to pry the killer's fingers apart and wrapped his fists instead around the head of the cane, then blindly thrust it backwards like a stabbing sword with all the force he had left, holding nothing back. His vision blacked totally and he heard a cry that seemed very far away, and he almost thought he heard sirens, but the hands left his throat and he was gasping for air and falling and concrete hit his knees and the pain flashed red and then there was nothing at all.

* * *

Starsky took a chance and slapped on the flashing lights behind the grille as he threw the unmarked squad into gear and peeled out of the parking lot, cutting across oncoming traffic with a reckless disregard for safety and only the lights for warning. He left the siren silent, obeying his own orders that far, at least. One-handed, he fumbled the surveillance headset back on, listening for Hutch with straining ears, but he heard nothing; he prayed that it was just preoccupation, his fool of a partner forgetting to play to the house again. As he wove through the traffic, he tried to do the math in his head: how long for Hutch to reach his car, how fast he'd dare to drive, where he'd stop, how long he'd wait before he'd make his play, trusting his backup to _be_ there. And then the other half of the equation: how long had _he_ talked? How slowly had _he_ moved? And why the hell hadn't he gotten multiple receivers tuned to that wire, to let the rest of Egghead listen directly to Hutch? Who _cared_ if that wasn't the way it was usually done?

"Nuthouse to Papa Bear," the tactical radio said, and he forgot the round of recriminations as he grabbed the receiver.

"I read you, Nuthouse. Where are you?"

"In position three blocks west of 1031," Harris's voice continued calmly. "Everything seems quiet ‒ wait ‒ there's a car just pulled in five blocks east of us. I think maybe Goldilocks has arrived."

"I'm about three minutes away. _Watch_ him! Any sign of Jenkins?"

"No ‒ but the porch light's out, and with those big bushes a horse could be hiding in there and we wouldn't see him."

"No shit, buddy," Hutch's voice said softly in his ear, and the car swerved as Starsky jerked the wheel in surprise. "And hemlocks on both sides, just to make it really easy."

Starsky grinned, despite the knot of fear that still gripped his stomach. The important things really hadn't changed; Hutch was running true to their old form, as if they both were mindlinked.

"Nuthouse, I can confirm that Goldilocks is on the scene." Hell, if _he_ could hear the smile in his voice that clearly, he wondered what Harris and Hidalgo would make of it. "We're back in contact."

"Next time we do this, partner, _you_ wear the wire and _I_ get the two-way," Hutch grumbled into his ear.

"Yeah, well, I _said_ I'd rather be the inside guy, if you'll remember," Starsky muttered back, spinning the wheel to skate around a corner.

"I just hope to hell I've got backup out there somewhere, 'cause if I don't, well, you're the one gets to explain it all to Neese."

"Fat chance," Starsky said. "Trust me."

"I almost wish you were still driving that stupid striped tomato of yours, just so I'd know for certain that you were around."

"Hah! And you said you didn't miss it!"

There was a moment of silence, and then he heard Hutch sigh.

"Here goes nothing."

Starsky strained his ears, but the faint sounds he could detect over the traffic noise and his own pounding heartbeat were indecipherable, and he hit the steering wheel in frustration..

"Come on, dammit, keep broadcasting, say _something_."

Almost as if Hutch could hear him, he heard the music start, a little absent humming at first, followed by words so quiet they were almost subvocal.

"Don't give up on us baby/Don't make that wrong seem right ..."

"Oh, great ‒ more moldy oldies," Starsky complained over the music, and then he heard Harris on the other receiver.

"Goldilocks is turning into the walk, looks like he's reaching for his keys ‒ damn, the bushes are in the way, can't see him ..."

At almost the same moment, the music cut out. Starsky hesitated ‒ transmission problem? another brainstorm? trouble? ‒ and tried to wish his ears beyond the limits of the receiver to understand what he heard.

"Bet you thought I'd given up, hey?"

It was almost too faint to hear, but from the first syllable he knew it wasn't Hutch and he knew what it had to mean. He didn't even wait to make sense of the words ‒ he just grabbed up the tactical radio and punched the transmit button.

"He's hit!" he shouted, "Go-go-GO!" and he dropped the receiver on the floor as he slapped on the siren and floored the accelerator, spinning around the last turn and rocketing down the street. He saw Harris and Hidalgo, guns drawn, running flat out up the walk and vanishing beyond the bushes; then he jackrabbited the car up onto the sidewalk and dove out himself, hitting the ground running while he yanked the gun from its holster, dimly aware of other units arriving behind him. His car's headlights lit a scene that his mind just recorded to sort out later: Jenkins on the ground gripping his belly and groaning while Harris landed practically on top of him with handcuffs ready; Hidalgo in a textbook perfect stance with gun held steady in both hands, covering the groaning man and backing up her partner; and Hutch, silent and unmoving, crumpled face-down on the walk.

He thought his heart would stop.

He dropped to his knees beside Hutch, automatically switching hands on his gun to free up his left to search for the pulse in his partner's neck. He sagged in relief when he felt its throb under his fingers and heard the faintest wheeze that told him Hutch was breathing. He took the time to holster his gun before he reached out to gently turn him over. Other hands were suddenly there to help, lifting Hutch's head off the pavement to cradle it in a lap, and Starsky glanced up to see Denise tenderly stroking the blond hair. She met his eyes and smiled, and it was acceptance and fear and forgiveness and sorrow and joy, all at once.

He didn't even have to look to know that the hand on his shoulder belonged to his wife. Bolstered by the support he felt from them both, Starsky patted Hutch's chalk-pale cheek as he began to stir.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty, time to wake up. Don't you know you're not allowed to lie down on the job?"

As if in answer, Hutch tried in waking reflex to draw a deeper breath, only to gasp and choke when his bruised airway couldn't expand. One flailing hand brushed Starsky's, and Starsky gripped it hard, trying to will strength through the link even as he felt his own throat closing in the same panic reaction, his own lungs starving for air they couldn't get. The pain and fear translated into anger.

"Where the hell are the paramedics?" he yelled.

"On their way, chief." Hidalgo kept her cool. "John already put in the call."

Denise stayed calm as well. She bent forward to be sure that Hutch could both hear and see her, but she kept her voice steady and soothing, and her hand continued to stroke.

"Relax, Hutch, just relax! You can breathe, it's all right. Let go. Shallow breaths, stay still, don't fight it, it's okay to pass out, you'll be fine. It's okay; let go. Your body just wants more oxygen right now than it can get; the balance will come back. Don't push, stay quiet, relax. Relax. You're all right; you're okay."

Her litany of reassurance seemed to work on Starsky as well as on Hutch. As Hutch closed his eyes and stopped trying to move, his desperate struggle to breathe eased a little bit, and Starsky finally managed to look away from him and take in their surroundings. Cheryl clung to his shoulder, her attention split between Hutch, Denise, and himself; he gave her an absent smile and patted her hand with his free one, and then glanced over at Hidalgo and her prisoner. Jenkins looked bad, and it wasn't all the uncharitable light; his face was almost gray and sheened with sweat, and although his hands were now cuffed behind his back, he was still curled up in an almost fetal position, semiconscious at best and moaning with pain. Seeing that she had Starsky's attention, Hidalgo nodded at Jenkins.

"Your partner did okay," she said. "He took this guy out himself; he was already down when we reached him. Point of the cane right into the gut, I think. Harris called for an ambulance." Her eyes tracked to Hutch, who was still wheezing with the agonized effort to breathe, and she smiled, just a little. "Pretty good, for a gimpy old retired guy."

"You should get so good, someday," Starsky said, almost able to joke as the worst of the fear slowly melted away under Denise's soft, hypnotic monologue of reassurance.

Harris came hurrying up the walk with the paramedic team, and Denise looked up long enough to add two new words to her soothing litany without changing tone or breaking rhythm.

"Attempted strangulation," she said, with a gesture at Hutch, and the younger of the two paramedics needed no further encouragement to bring up an oxygen tank and fit the mask over Hutch's face. As gently as he could, he probed Hutch's throat to feel for any obvious damage or misalignment in the larynx and esophagus. Wincing in pain, Hutch feebly squeezed Starsky's hand with fingers that felt frighteningly weak.

"Nothing feels out of place," the young man said after a minute. "The doctors will run some x-rays just to be sure, but I don't think there's any permanent damage ‒ just a lot of bruising. You're not going to do any talking for a while, and it'll take time for the swelling and the soreness to go away, but I think you'll be fine." An imp of mischief infiltrated his professional smile. "Your neck's gonna show more colors than a rainbow. We'll get you a cold pack in a bit. Hang in there." He winked, and then crossed to help his partner with Jenkins. Starsky didn't hear much of their conversation beyond a reference to "possible internal organ rupture" and their request that the guy be uncuffed since he obviously couldn't go anywhere; he looked up just long enough to give Harris a nod and then point with his chin at the gurney. Harris took the hint, and cuffed one of Jenkins' wrists to the gurney once they'd gotten him on it. Starsky mostly ignored the Jenkins drama, secure in Harris' and Hidalgo's ability to take charge, and just stayed on his knees and kept hold of Hutch's hand.

Hutch's color improved rapidly as his breathing slowly calmed and steadied on the influx of pure oxygen. After a couple of minutes, he opened his eyes again, and after a quick glance around and the barest hint of a smile at Denise, Starsky, and Cheryl, he locked eyes with Starsky and raised an eyebrow.

"You nailed him, buddy ‒ we got him," Starsky said, accurately reading the question, and saw the last ghost of anxiety fade out of the blue eyes. He grinned. "As Hidalgo would say, not bad ‒ for a gimpy old retired guy."

Hutch's eyes widened, his face an amusing study in offended outrage, and he opened his mouth to speak, reaching up to pull the mask out of his way, only to discover that no sound would come out and that the effort robbed him of what strength he'd managed to recover thus far. Starsky grinned and slipped the mask back into place.

"I'll have to thank him for one thing, though," he said smugly, and waited until the blond head cocked slightly, obediently if mutely asking 'why?' Starsky leaned forward.

"I _finally_ get the last word!"

_End of Act Four_


	5. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _This is not intended to infringe upon any trademark rights or copyrights held by Spelling/Goldberg Productions, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures Television, the American Broadcasting Company, Sony Television, or others in connection with the names and likenesses of characters depicted in the 1975-1979 television series _ _ **Starsky &amp; Hutch** _

**Starsky &amp; Hutch: Together Again**

_ **Opened Minds** _

Copyright 1995, Bardicvoice

**Epilogue**

"Ice cream!" Cheryl announced, setting the tray down on the patio table in the Starsky's backyard. "I remember the best thing about having my tonsils out was getting all the ice cream I could eat; it's the one thing I know you'll be able to manage."

Hutch smiled in wry appreciation and, still seated, spread his hands and pantomimed a bow. The doctors had concurred that there would be no permanent damage, but on this second day after the attack, Hutch was still virtually voiceless. The open collar of his shirt displayed a throat nearly black with bruises just starting to show the first mottlings of livid yellow and purple along their edges, clearly defining the shapes of Jenkins' fingers.

Starsky kept right on with the discussion as if there hadn't been an interruption, splitting his attention just enough to help Cheryl hand the bowls and spoons around.

"Yeah, we didn't find much in his place, but then Hidalgo ran his library chargeouts and we hit paydirt. Past six months, Jenkins read about every book he could find on serial killers. Fits the pattern he set with all his other fads: study like crazy, then try it for himself."

"How did he think he could get away with it?" Cheryl wondered, and Denise shook her head.

"He still might, if he can get a jury to buy an insanity defense. I mean, how many people could really accept that this whole thing was a deliberate plot, a sick, perverted game? He set up a madman's kind of logic for picking his targets and for making his kills, and he stuck to those rules, right to the end. He didn't figure on being caught, but if he was, so what ‒ he's crazy, right? He'd maybe wind up committed again to a place like Quiet Glen, to stay until he was 'cured,' and he knew that routine already, he'd be able to play it like a violin. The only way he'll go to jail is if the DA can convince a jury that he really did plan it all just exactly this way, to use the appearance of insanity to hide his deliberate intent, and I'm afraid that's just too crazy in itself for most people to accept, no matter how much evidence we present."

Hutch reached out with one hand and circled her wrist with his fingers, giving her arm a gentle shake.

"Leave it," he said, in his almost soundless whisper, and shrugged.

"Doesn't pay to worry, Neese," Starsky agreed. "We're doin' all we can. If that's not enough, well ‒ we'll be waitin' when he gets out."

"'If'," Hutch breathed, putting emphatic quotation marks around the word, and Starsky grinned.

"Yeah ‒ don't buy trouble before it happens. Hell, he's still gotta make it out of the hospital; ruptured spleen ain't a walk in the park." He cocked his head at his partner. "You really nailed him good."

Hutch snorted and rationed his breathing to make his ghost voice work.

"Lucky. Blind shot. Pure chance."

Starsky shook his head stubbornly.

"Good solid cop instincts," he insisted. "You still got 'em, partner."

Hutch made a dismissive gesture with his free hand and deliberately focused his attention on the dish of ice cream in front of him. For just an instant, Starsky looked ready to continue the argument, but then he shrugged and let it slide, digging a spoon into his own dish. Denise almost did the same, but hesitated when she noticed Cheryl watching Starsky with a particularly narrow, speculative expression, an unmistakeable 'you're up to something' look. Eyeing him herself, she realized that he was surreptitiously watching the walk at the side of the house, with the air of a man who was killing time waiting for something. Then she faintly heard a car door slam, and saw his head come up as if in answer.

"Caught holy hell from the deputy commissioner for 'running around playing street cop,'" Starsky said casually, in a transparent change of subject. "He asked me if I thought I was some punk detective sergeant again, who could dodge paperwork by running a stakeout and endangering a civilian, no less."

Behind Hutch's back, Denise saw Huggy Bear and a well-dressed, portly, grey-haired black man round the corner of the house. Starsky tried mostly unsuccessfully to bottle a grin as he saw them approaching.

"He has a few choice things to say to you about what went down, too; I told him it was all your crazy idea," Starsky finished.

Whatever comment Hutch might have made was lost in the big black man's military parade-ground bellow.

"Hutchinson!"

Hutch dropped his spoon as long-unused reflexes hauled him to his feet and turned him around in answer to a summons he'd never expected to hear again. He gaped at the newcomer in astonishment.

"Cap ‒ Captain Dobey?" His voice squeaked and cracked into audibility before dropping back into almost breathless soundlessness. "Thought sure ‒ you'd retired."

"Yeah, well, I thought the same about you ‒ and then I turn around and you're violating the book again, along with this reprobate of a partner of yours. Won't you ever learn to play by the rules? And it's 'Deputy Commissioner' now." Dobey kept striding forward like a ship under full sail until he stood close enough to grab Hutch's hand and shake it while he clapped the younger man on the shoulder hard enough to stagger him. "It's good to see you again, Hutchinson. All in all, you don't look too bad."

"Same," Hutch managed to croak, still stunned with surprise.

Dobey turned expectantly to the one unknown face around the table, and Huggy made the introduction.

"Doctor Denise Bay, Deputy Police Commissioner Harold Dobey. He used to be the captain riding herd on these two cowboys, before he got kicked upstairs and off the street. Neese is Hutch's lady ‒ always knew it would take a shrink to be able to understand him."

Unable to handle verbal fencing, Hutch waved a protesting finger, while Denise laughed and accepted Dobey's hand.

"He's not that bad, Huggy ‒ you know him well enough! I'm pleased to meet you, Commissioner."

"I assure you, the pleasure's all mine. And call me Harold ‒ it's only these three," and his sweeping gesture took in Starsky, Hutch, and Huggy, "who have to observe the formalities."

Starsky yanked down on Hutch's sleeve.

"Siddown and shut yer mouth," he stage-whispered. "Ya look like a rube."

Already halfway off balance, Hutch dropped back down into his chair, still looking a bit dazed. Dobey and Huggy found seats as well, and only when Cheryl began dishing out more ice cream did Denise notice that the extra bowls and spoons had already been waiting on the tray.

"I know that neither of you will refuse ice cream," Cheryl said, and gave Dobey an assessing glance, "even if you should."

"Well, just a little won't hurt," Dobey said, "with chocolate sauce?" and the familiarity of it all finally broke Hutch's surprise into soundless laughter.

"Some things ‒ don't change," he whispered through the ripples of mirth, and any sense of hesitancy about the group dissolved.

"I wanted to talk to you about that," Dobey said. He glanced over at Starsky and raised an eyebrow. "You say anything to him?"

"No, sir," Starsky said piously. "You said that was your privilege."

Hutch stilled with sudden tension while Dobey gave Starsky an appraising look.

"Be the first time you two haven't ganged up on me," he said. "I don't know whether to be happy or worried." He turned his gaze on Hutch and paused for a moment, then chose to ignore the other man's apparent unease and plowed ahead.

"You were a good cop, Hutchinson. You and this maniac made the best team I've ever seen; I was never sorrier than the day you left. I still want you back."

The ridiculous impossibility of it would have robbed Hutch of words even if he'd been able to speak; as it was, he snorted eloquently and glanced away with suddenly bitter eyes.

"Look at me, Hutchinson!" Dobey snapped, and the remembered force of his personality brought Hutch's attention unwillingly back. He continued in a calmer tone.

"I'm not saying it can be the way it was. We're all too old for the street stuff. But there is something you can do, something you should do ‒ something I think you were made for. This Jenkins thing showed that. You've still got the instinct, you've still got the knack ‒ why not pass it on? I understand you've become one hell of a teacher. I need a teacher. I need a teacher who also knows how to be a cop. I need somebody who can teach rookies how to survive on the streets while they do the job the right way, not just the book way." When Hutch didn't respond, Dobey softened his voice further.

"Damn it, I've got to retire this year. I'm mandatory age; I don't have any choice. I need somebody to run the academy when I'm gone, somebody I trust to keep those kids alive. I can't imagine anyone I'd trust more than you."

"Harris and Hidalgo respect you," Starsky added quietly. "They didn't do that for me, or because of your old reputation; they respect you because you _earned_ it. Because you're still a cop, Hutch." He touched his own forehead and his chest over his heart. "Here and here, you're still a cop. You impressed the hell out of 'em. They look at you, they don't see a guy with a cane; they see the cop who took down the campus killer. Better believe it, they got no pity for you, and they'll laugh their heads off if anybody says you need it."

It wasn't fair, their ganging up on him without warning. Hutch looked away, reliving all the pain of opening that door, of facing that decision again. What he wanted, what he feared ‒ what he would lose. His eyes tracked unerringly to Denise.

She smiled slightly and spoke as if they were entirely alone, as if the others didn't exist.

"I'm not quite like Kipling's cat," she said, very softly, and reached out to take his hand. "All places _aren't_ alike to me; the place where you are is the only one that matters. Open your mind and follow your heart, I'll be beside you wherever you go." Her smile broadened. "My work, I can do anywhere. You, I take where I can get."

Buoyed by her eyes, he squeezed her hand, and then glanced around at the others. Huggy nodded encouragingly, a quiet "Yeah, man," his only contribution. Cheryl just looked at him with big eyes, both of her hands locked on Starsky's right wrist, her expression frozen somewhere between hope and disappointment. Dobey sat clearly uncomfortable with the silence but unwilling to push it further.

Starsky's eyes were bottomless.

"Come home, Hutch." Starsky paused for just an instant, then added a word that the two of them had rarely used between them, speaking almost as voicelessly as Hutch. "Please."

It was that last little word that broke him. He had to drop his eyes and blink them hard to keep the others from seeing him shatter. He felt Denise squeeze his hand and he returned the pressure, grateful for the distraction. Then he could look up again to meet his partner's gaze, to see the shift and the sudden light in his eyes as the near-telepathy between them answered the question before Hutch's tongue could.

"You got upset ‒ the last time we ‒ did the Academy," he husked, looking at Dobey. He was abruptly glad that the bruises had stolen his voice, because he knew he couldn't have controlled it anyway. Dobey's face took on an almost gloating expression as he realized that he'd won.

"_I_ didn't get upset. The _director_ got upset. Somehow, I don't think you'll have that problem now ‒ unless you're in the habit of getting upset with yourself?"

"_Don't_ give him any ideas on that," Denise warned. "He'll do it."

Dobey smiled, recollecting other days.

"Yeah ‒ come to think of it, I do remember him being a fool that way. Hasn't outgrown it yet, hmm?"

Denise tugged on Hutch's hand to make him meet her eyes, and she held his look until he finally matched her little smile.

"We're working on it," she said in answer, but she didn't look away from Hutch while she said it, and after a beat, he nodded.

A sudden commotion from the front of the house resolved into the growl of a bus engine overlaid by the voices of several young boys shouting goodbyes. As the adults in the backyard heard the thump and rumble of the bus pulling away again, a boy of about twelve in a boy scout uniform came pelting around the side of the house, knapsack and rolled sleeping bag slung over one shoulder.

"Dad! Mom! I'm home! It was great ..."

The boy slowed and came to an uncertain stop as he saw faces he didn't know. Starsky grinned at his son.

"Kenny ‒ welcome home. Come on; there's someone here I want you to meet." Starsky met the boy halfway and put a hand on his shoulder. The boy looked up warily at him, reading levels of emotion in his father's voice and face that he didn't fully understand, but he was subtly reassured by the warmth and the pride that clearly cut across everything else. The presence of strangers and the curious intensity around the table put him on his best behavior; he smiled broadly at his mother, but restrained himself to a carefully correct "Hello, Commissioner" and a slightly more bouncy "Hi, Uncle Huggy!" along the way, before coming to a stop in front of Hutch and Denise. Stiffly, using the cane for assistance, Hutch stood up.

"Kenny, this is Doctor Bay." Denise cocked her head at Starsky and smiled, and he could suddenly read her as easily as Hutch. "I guess you can consider her your honorary Aunt Denise. Neese, our son Ken."

"I'm pleased to meet you, Ken. I hope we'll become good friends."

"Yes, ma'am," Kenny said, ingrained politeness responding according to formula while the greater part of his attention, following his father's, was focused on Hutch.

"And this," Starsky said, his eyes locking with Hutch's, "this is my very best friend in all the world. He's my partner. His name is Ken, too ‒ Ken Hutchinson ‒ but we just call him Hutch. He was hurt once and he's been away for a long time, since before you were born, but now he's coming home."

"Home to stay," Hutch said, holding his partner's gaze over Kenny's head, and the voiceless phrase was a promise. The moment stretched until the two men smiled at precisely the same instant, and then Hutch held out his hand to Kenny as Starsky gripped Hutch's shoulder. The partnership was back.

Starsky and Hutch were together again.

_End_


End file.
